

/X\tA*r 






























Grace Lorraine 














































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Grace Lorraine . A 

Romance : By Douglas Sladen 

Author of "The ‘Douglas Romance, “ HisGerman Wife," 
"The Unholy Estate, "A Japanese Marriage, etc. 



NEW YORK : 
BRENT ANO’S 

1917 



DEDICATED TO 


stewart McArthur k.c., 


OF MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 

IN MEMORY OF 

THE UNDERGRADUATE DAYS WE SPENT TOGETHER 
AT THE MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY 
IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES, 

AND THE MANY HAPPY DAYS 
WHICH I HAVE BEEN PRIVILEGED TO SPEND WITH HIM 
IN THIS YEAR OF GRACE 
1916 



/.* 


Printed in Great Britain 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE 

I. — Introducing Grace Lorraine and 

Roger Wynyard . . . . i 

II. — How the Abbey of Via Pacis was 

BESTOWED ON THE LORRAINES BY KlNG 

Henry the Eighth .... 5 

HI. — How Henry Lorraine XIII. turned 
the Monastery of Via Pacis into a 
College for Poor Authors, Artists 
and Musicians ..... 7 

IV. — Twenty- four Years later — the Col- 
lege of Via Pacis . . . .12 

V. — Introducing Hestia Myrtle . . 16 

VI. — Introducing the Fellows of Via Pacis. 20 

VII. — Enter Architeuthis Monachus . . 25 

VIII. — The House of Cards .... 34 

IX. — The Founding of the Union Jack 

Electrical Association . . .53 

X. — Descensus Averni .... 59 

XI. — The Squire breaks his Bankruptcy 

to the Rector .... 66 

XII. — L’Homme propose .... 70 

XIII. — Introducing Mr. Richmond Ebbutt . 73 

XIV. — How Mr. Lorraine became Master of 

the Fellowship of Via Pacis . . 84 

XV. — How Grace Lorraine took her Poverty 86 

XVI. — How Mr. Richmond Ebbutt went in 

Search of the Middle Ages . . 95 

XVII. — What Mr. Ebbutt thought of his 
Neighbours, and his Neighbours 

THOUGHT OF HIM .... 102 

XVIII. — Grace Lorraine’s First Step to 

Fortune ...... 109 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE 

XIX. — Concerning Hestia Myrtle and Grace 

Lorraine . . . . • .112 

XX. — Concerning an Officers’ Training 

Corps and a Musical Comedy . .124 

XXI. — Lord Dartmoor intervenes . .136 

XXII. — “ Adieu for ever more, my Love ! 

Adieu for ever more ! " . . . 14 1 

XXIII.— The Loose End 152 

XXIV. — Mr. and Mrs. Myrtle. . . .162 

XXV. — A Letter from Grace. . . . 167 

XXVI. — An Act of Grace . . . • *74 

XXVII. — The Love of Woman which passeth 

all Understanding . . . .185 

XXVIII. — Anticipation . . . • • *94 

XXIX. — The Cards come true . . . 205 

XXX. — Mr. Dryander begins his Vendetta . 214 

XXXI. — How Grace received the News of 

Roger’s Infidelity .... 222 

XXXII. — A Letter from Roger. . . .227 

XXXIII. — Mr. Ebbutt goes still further into 
the Middle Ages : the Founding of 
the New Taormina . . . .230 

XXXIV. — Mr. Ebbutt’s Plans for the New 
Taormina and an Arthurian 
Oberammergau . .... 238 

XXXV. — Grace examines herself . . . 248 

XXXVI. — The Olive Branch . . . -254 

XXXVII. — How Roger was given a Week-end’s 

Leave for his Marriage . . . 259 

XXXVIII. — How Friendship began between Grace 

Lorraine and Mr. Ebbutt . . . 262 

XXXIX. — Of the Pressure brought upon Grace 

to marry Mr. Ebbutt . . . 271 

XL. — How News of Roger’s Death was 

BROUGHT TO GRACE, AND SHE CON- 
SENTED to marry Mr. Ebbutt . . 281 

XLI. — The Villa Elena : how Grace took 

Hestia to her Bosom . . . 290 

XLII. — How Mr. Shapley accused Hestia in 

Grace’s Presence .... 297 


CONTENTS 


vii 

CHAP. PAGE 

XLIII. — What Hestia and Grace told each 

OTHER WHEN Mr. SHAPLEY HAD GONE 3OI 

XLIV. — Grace hurries on her Marriage with 

Mr. Ebbutt ..... 306 

XLV. — What Mr. Shapley said to Mr. 

Dryander ..... 309 

XLVI. — The Marriage of Grace Lorraine . 315 

XLVII. — The Honeymoon ..... 322 

XLVIII. — The New Enoch Arden . . .32 7 

XLIX. — What Grace told her Husband. . 341 

L. — The Last Chapter of Via Pacis. . 344 


VIA PACIS 


The name VIA PACIS seemed to have 
impressed its character on the whole penin- 
sula. 

Two years after the War had begun, 
beyond the presence of mine-sweepers in 
the inlet and the absence of young men in 
the village, there was but one departure 
from THE WAY OF PEACE. 

One home had paid its blood-tax, leaving I 
Grace Lorraine her romance, under the 
shadow of the New Taormina which was 
rising on the cliffs of Devon. 


GRACE LORRAINE 


CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCING GRACE LORRAINE AND ROGER WYNYARD 

I T was a hot afternoon in the earlier part of July, 1914. 

Roger Wynyard and Grace Lorraine had just finished 
their tea on the tennis lawn. 

The girl was very, very lovely ; her features were 
patrician in their clear-cut beauty ; her cheeks were as 
delicate in colour as a wild rose, and in texture as satin ; 
her hair was glitteringly fair ; she was her name 
personified. 

She was resting, after three hard sets, on a deck chair, 
and regarding with admiration the splendid young English- 
man, who had just shown the hopelessness of the best 
woman tennis-player's standing up against a first-class 
man. 

He was seated on the grass in front of her, with his hands 
clasped round his knees, gazing at her rapturously — a 
tall, strong boy, of three or four and twenty, whose charm 
lay not so much in right-down handsomeness, as in the 
expression of frankness and fearlessness wh.ch comes so 
naturally to those who excel in active sports. 

Something seemed to be troubling him, but he had been 
gazing at her for several minutes before he got it out. 

“ What a pity it is that you are so rich, Grace ! " 

She looked at him with steady affection in her candid 
eyes, which were almost violet in the, depth of their blue. 

I 


2 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I know what you mean, Roger, but I can assure you 
that it is not that which stands in the way. I couldn’t 
marry you if you did me the honour of asking me once 
more.” 

“ I shan’t have the face to ask you, but do tell me why 
you have refused me in advance.” 

f “ There are two chief reasons — the greatest is that you 
take no interest in the things which make life worth living. 
I don’t think you know the name of a single picture which 
has been painted, or a single book which has been written, 
by the artists and authors who have been working at Via 
Pacis for more than twenty years. You do not bestow a 
thought on these clever people, except as givers of teas in 
a rather isolated village, and parents of boys and girls of 
the tennis age. That is one grievance ; and the other is 
that, because you have a little income of your own, you 
dawdle through life, pretending that you are going to be 
a barrister, but really giving up your whole time to sport. 
I love sport — I enjoy having a game of golf or tennis with 
you awfully, but I think that it’s a miserable business to 
go through life thinking of nothing else. I sometimes 
hardly have the patience to talk to you about it ! ” 

“ Steady on, old girl ! Don’t be so jolly cross about it ! ” 

“I’m not cross, Roger — it is too difficult to be cross 
with you. I’m only trying to make you more worthy 
of yourself.” 

“ I hate being worthy of myself ! It’s too much like 
the Catechism. You are talking to one whose grandfather, 
in spite of being the dearest chap in the world, has been 
compelled by the exigences of his profession to talk to 
yours truly as if he was a Sunday School.” 

“ Well, I’ve said my say, Roger, and perhaps you think 
that I had no right to say it, but you’re the greatest friend 
I ever had, so I should have been rather a sneak not to 
say it.” 

" Be a sneak about this, Grace.” 

” How can you say this, Roger, when you are so red-hot 
about the Public-School code ? Why doesn’t the Public- 
School code stop slacking — the sort of slacking you go 


Introducing Grace Lorraine 8 

“ What a tyrant we are to-day, Grade ! ” 

“ Supposing anything was to happen, and your people 
lost their money — where would you be ? ’’ 

" I could always enlist." 

“ That would be better than the life you’re leading now." 

“ I think it’s rather fun your talking like this, Grace, 
when you’re going to inherit this splendid old place and the 
lands all round it, as far as you can see ! " 

"It is not so odd as it looks. My mother’s father, 
Senator Falkland, was one of the rich men in the State of 
Georgia, but when the four years of Civil War were over, 
he had only a few hundreds a year left. We in England 
never think about war, but there is such a thing left in 
the world." 

" I’ve heard something about the Falklands. It’s 
only natural that it should have made you ... I forget 
the word." 

" Morbid ? " 

"Yes, that’s it. Cheer up ! I’ll let you take me 
round your super-tropical garden.” 

" Sub-tropical, Roger." 

" Sub-tropical garden, and show me the oranges and 
lemons and those spiky things." 

" Aloes ? " 

" Yes, aloes, and palm-trees, and all the other things 
which ought not to be growing here, if it will make you 
feel better." 

The rocky front of the plateau above the sea, on which 
the house stood, faced due south, and was so protected 
from other points by an amphitheatre of hills, that almost 
anything which grows on the Riviera could be made to 
flourish there in the open air. It was laid out in the 
Italian style, with paths and terraces, and stairways hewn 
out of the rock, and its ledges and crevices had been filled 
with semi-tropical shrubs and flowers, regardless of expense. 

This garden was Grace Lorraine’s greatest joy, and 
Roger Wynyard’s failure to appreciate it was a cardinal 
sin in her eyes. He tried hard to understand it on this 
July evening, but it was of no use. Grace was worried 
over the futility of the country gentleman’s existence. 

i* 


4 


Grace Lorraine 


The best, like Roger’s uncle, took a sympathetic interest 
in their tenants, but few of them, if they were living on 
their estates, did anything except enjoy themselves, whether 
their enjoyment took the form of sport or gardening or 
breeding prize animals. Most of them, in the days before 
the war, apart from their pleasures, were content to keep 
themselves, like their horses, in what they called “ con- 
dition.” 

She liked them extremely to meet at social functions. 
They were brave and charming, and, if they were unmarried, 
reckoned up all the advantages she offered as a wife. But 
not one of them had ever entered the door of the Via Pacis 
Fellowship, which represented the solitary attempt to 
bring this huge peninsula of Devon into touch with the 
work of the world. 

They were drones, and Roger in a way was the worst 
of them, because the others had the welfare of their estates 
to look after — if they did look after it — whereas he 
lived the life which they did, without having anything to 
look after. 

But he had her affection because they had been brought 
up together since they were children, and he had the most 
charming disposition of any man she had ever met. For 
he was generosity and chivalry personified, and had not 
one trace of “ swank,” though his cricket had made him 
the idol of Rugby and Oxford, and he was the favourite 
nephew of the local Earl. 

Grace, in her way, was his opposite. For though the 
County considered her arrogant because she insisted on 
living her life in her own way, instead of theirs, and refused 
offers of marriage from the most eligible men on the mere 
ground that she could not love them, the beautiful heiress 
of Via Pacis spent her days with the members of the 
Fellowship and their families exactly as if she were one of 
themselves. She craved for companionship in her studies, 
and intellectual society, and recognized that the Arts are 
a republic in which only success and genius count. 


CHAPTER II 


HOW THE ABBEY OF VIA PACIS WAS BESTOWED ON THE 
LORRAINES BY KING HENRY VIII 

HE monastery and lands of Via Pads had been the 



J. property of the Lorraines for nearly four hundred 
years. The first of the family to own them was Jean- 
Baptiste de Lorraine, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, 
who came over in the suite of Catherine of Aragon, and 
was dismissed by her on account of his fondness for the 
society of Colet and Erasmus, and other students of the 
New Learning, who were far more closely associated in 
her eyes with the spread of anti-papal ideas than the revival 
of the ancient Greek language. King Henry, the finest 
royal scholar of his age, sympathized with him, and gave 
him a post in his own household, so that they might study 
together, which they did with great profit, Jean-Baptiste 
acquainting the King with the latest discoveries of the 
New Learning, and keeping a kind of register of them, 
which is among the most treasured possessions of the 
library at Windsor Castle. 

When King Henry suppressed the monasteries, and 
distributed their wealth, he did not forget the discharged 
Gentleman of his wife’s Bedchamber, who had suffered for 
his learning, but gave him the ruins and the revenues of 
the great Abbey of Via Pacis. Furthermore, when Jean- 
Baptiste de Lorraine took himself a wife, who in good time 
bore him a son, King Henry became its godfather, from 
which time every eldest son of the Lorraines had always 
been given the name of Henry at his baptism. 


5 


Grace Lorraine 


The Henry Lorraine who, at the age of thirty, suc- 
ceeded to the property in the eighties, a great student and 
an accomplished man, had been a frequent visitor to Italy, 
where public institutions of all kinds are housed in ex- 
propriated monasteries, and because he hated the thought 
of such a splendid tract of Devonshire serving no useful 
purpose, conceived the idea of restoring the monastery of 
Via Pacis, and making it the seat of an institution which 
should be of great benefit to the public, and cause posterity 
to remember the Lorraines, when their name was lost from 
the lands, with his death and the marriage of his daughter. 


CHAPTER III 


HOW HENRY LORRAINE XIII. TURNED THE MONASTERY OF 
VIA PACIS INTO A COLLEGE FOR POOR AUTHORS, ARTISTS 
AND MUSICIANS 



E plunged into the scheme with characteristic 


i i avidity. He called in the architect of a west- 
country cathedral, as likely to be acquainted with 
monastic buildings ; he wished to combine modem condi- 
tions with as little violence as possible to ancient appear- 
ances, and he wished to restore faithfully such parts of the 
great Abbey as were capable of restoration. 

On the day when the architect arrived, the Lorraines — 
Georgia Lorraine was then alive — and the Rector made a 
tour of the ruins with him. They began with the Great 
Court, which still had the greater part of its colonnade 
standing, and the monks’ houses behind it fairly perfect, 
except for minor defects. 

“ Dear me, how very fine ! ” said the architect, when 
they went into some of the forty monks’ houses, which 
each had two bedrooms above, and a study or sitting-room 
and a kitchen below. “ What exactly are you going to do 
with it, Mr. Lorraine ? ” 

“ Make it habitable as a home for professional people 
who have lost their money.” 

“ What other accommodation have you besides these 
houses, or cells, which might be made habitable ? ” 

“ Roughly speaking, the Chapter-House, the Refectory, 
the monastery kitchen, and other servants’ offices, and 
parts of the Abbot’s Lodging.” 


7 


8 


Grace Lorraine 


“ And what shall you do with them ? ” 

“Turn the Refectory into a common dining-room, 
and the Chapter-House into a library and club-room. 
What remains of the Abbot’s Lodging I shall turn into a 
residence for the Master, and a residence and an office 
for the steward.” 

“ What will the Master’s duties be ? ” 

“ Practically nil, except to see that the steward carries 
out his duties with a proper regard for the comfort of 
the inmates. The steward has the largest responsibilities, 
because he has to provide for their feeding, lighting and 
wanning.” 

“ How many inmates do you propose to have in your 
endowment, Mr. Lorraine ? ” 

“ Forty, I suppose — that is the number of the monks’ 
houses,” he replied. 

But his wife was up in arms. 

“ Are you going to run it on the lines of a workhouse,” 
she inquired, “ with the separation of married couples 
for your first condition ? ” 

She asked it with fine indignation, and indignation was 
natural to Mrs. Lorraine, an American with severe beauty 
and a deep blue eye. 

“ Instead of forty widows and widowers and separate 
houses, each with one bedroom and one bathroom and 
one sitting-room and one kitchen, why not have twenty 
and allow each person to have a husband or wife or child 
with them ? I don’t think that is quite grammar, only 
I’m trying to talk sense, not grammar — and have a bath- 
room, three bedrooms, two sitting-rooms, and turn one 
kitchen into a pantry, really giving them some of the 
accommodation which they were accustomed to before 
they lost their money ? I've lost the thread of my sen- 
tence now, but you know what I mean.” 

“ They won’t want their kitchen and pantry much,” 
said the architect. “ I understand that they’re going 
to have their food in the Refectory ? ” 

“ Never mind — they would not feel happy without 
them.” 

“ How are they going to be charged for their food ? ” 


The Monastery of Via Pacis 9 

asked the architect pertinently. “ That will be a very 
important matter, whether you have twenty pensioners 
with relatives, or forty without. Will they pay a fixed 
rate per day, or just be charged for what they have ? ” 

“ I am going to pay for everything — food, lighting, 
heating and service. They will have no expenses what- 
ever, and will receive a small annual stipend to keep 
themselves in clothes, and other necessaries.” 

“It is the most generous thing I ever heard of ! ” 
said the architect. “ Have you calculated the ex- 
pense ? ” 

“ I have, and when I have paid for the restoration, 
equipment and furnishing of the buildings, I am going 
to hand over to trustees a sufficient amount of securities 
to produce the sum which will be required for their annual 
maintenance — merely reserving to myself the permanent 
right to appoint the Master, steward and beneficiaries of 
the College of the Fellowship of Via Pacis.” 

“ This will take a very large sum, Mr. Lorraine.” 

“ More than half my income, I anticipate, but I shall 
still have more than I require.” 

“ That’s your own affair, and it is princely munificence. 
Shall we see what has to be done ? ” 

“ I can tell you that in a very few words. I want the 
outward semblance, and as far as possible the interior 
also preserved unchanged, but I want each house to have 
its bathroom, and each room to have its radiator, skilfully 
concealed behind some appropriate decoration. I shall 
have furniture designed by an expert from the South 
Kensington Museum, as much in keeping with the period 
as possible, and shall call for tenders from leading London 
firms for carrying it out to his satisfaction.” 

“ I can see to that, and as you are giving such a large 
order, it may not perhaps cost greatly more than buying 
the furniture ready-made.” 

“ Are you going to let me have my way, and have each 
pair of houses knocked into one ? ” asked beautiful Mrs. 
Lorraine of her husband. 

“ What do you think, Mr. Crocket ? ” he asked the 
architect. 


10 


Grace Lorraine 


“ Well, I'm against it — it will alter the character of 
the building, and give an immense deal of extra work. 
We are dealing with very thick masonry/’ 

“Yes, but if you are going to give up half your income 
to establish this college of Via Pacis, it is worth while to 
do it right, and if you keep the houses separated as they 
are, they will only contain one bedroom, a bathroom, a 
living-room and a kitchen each, which will be a very tight 
squeeze for a married couple, and an impossibility for a 
parent and child of opposite sexes,” urged Mrs. Lorraine. 

“ You can turn the kitchens into bedrooms if they 
are not going to be used,” suggested the architect. 

“ That will alter the little houses a great deal more 
than putting a door between each pair,” persisted Mrs. 
Lorraine, who, like many Americans, had the reformer’s 
zeal. “ Besides, each house will want a room for keeping 
buckets and brooms and other cleaning implements.” 

“ That won’t form any difficulty,” answered her 
husband, “ because my guests won’t do the heavy cleaning 
themselves. I shall have a staff connected with the 
steward’s department to do that.” 

“ Well, what are we to do, Mr. Lorraine ? ” asked the 
architect. The domestic comfort of the inmates seemed 
a small matter to him compared with maintaining the 
monastic character of the little monks’ houses. 

“ Georgie shall decide,” replied the Squire. 

“I see only one way of deciding,” said Mrs. Lorraine. 
“ Dad and mumsy are just the sort of people whom you 
would have into Via Pacis College, and I know what it 
would mean to them if you kept men and women separate, 
like monks and nuns ; they wouldn’t be much longer for 
this world if they were long in the college.” 

“ That settles it,” said Mr. Lorraine. “ We are going 
to have a monastery in which the inmates bid good-bye 
not to the natural emotions, but only to the cares of the 
world. Our motto will be plain living, but poetical 
surroundings, which will lead, we hope, to study, philo- 
sophy, and Art — Art being the creation of objects of 
beauty, in writing, painting, sculpture, or music. I shall 
choose the inmates of Via Pacis mostly from artists, writers 


11 


The Monastery of Via Pacis 

and musicians, so that it shall be a little colony of people 
with creative instincts, settled in the midst of the natural 
and historical inspirations of Devonshire, a club of con- 
genial spirits, like the artists of Newlyn, forming a pleasant 
world for ourselves and the Wynyards to live in. 

“ And I shall provide a library of ten thousand books, 
including all I can think of which will stimulate the 
creativeness of the Fellowship of Via Pacis, when it is 
formed." 


CHAPTER IV 


TWENTY-FOUR YEARS LATER — THE COLLEGE OF VIA PACIS 

A T the time that this narrative commences, the 
Fellowship of Via Pacis — or, as it had come to be 
called, the Via Pacis School — was known to authors and 
artists all over the Anglo-Saxon world. 

At the moment it consisted of four authoresses, two 
authors, two actors, four men composers, a lady composer, 
four painters, a sculptor and two friends of Mr. Lorraine 
who had no special qualifications. 

It had been going for twenty-four years, and had amply 
justified its existence, for besides the twenty Fellows 
living in the monastery, and drawing their pensions, there 
were a dozen others who had made successes, and now had 
houses or summer bungalows on the estate, and a score 
or two more in London. 

The most important section of the School lived outside 
of the monastery walls, because no one who had attained 
sufficient success to pay income-tax could remain a member 
of the Fellowship. The salaries of both Master and 
steward were well below the income-tax level. The free 
board and housing, the stipend of a pound a week, meant 
the liberty to create for those who had failed in the 
struggle to make a living, and those who were beginning 
the struggle without means, and had to be financed until 
they could win a stipend from such a hard task-mistress 
as Art, just as an Oxford Fellowship has enabled many a 
Judge to start at the Bar. 

All who tad been members of the Fellowship were 


13 


The College of Via Pacis 

still free to use the Club-room library, with its thousands 
of books. It served as a link between those who had 
sprung from Via Pacis, and those who were still beholden 
to it. 

The Monastery had grown into a place of such beauty 
that it was a pilgrimage spot for all who came to South 
Devon. The vast court, surrounded by deep red sand- 
stone colonnades, very ancient and weather-worn, was 
filled with an old-fashioned monastery garden of paved 
paths, plots of aromatic herbs, and tall herbaceous plants, 
faithfully copied from an Italian prototype. 

A translation of the old Latin name of the Abbey, 
The Way of Peace , was carved on the restored entrance- 
tower, which admitted to the outer or Aboot’s Court, 
two sides of which were occupied by the Abbot’s Lodging, 
the Refectory and the Chapter-House, beautiful medieval 
buildings ; its centre being filled by a lawn of fine old 
turf, divided into four by stone paths, leading up to a 
sundial. An archway opposite to the entrance-tower 
led from the Abbot’s Court to the Great Court. Apart 
from the Monastery garden, it was like an Oxford College. 

The entrance which had once led from the Great Court 
to the Abbey Church and the cloisters, now led to the 
gardens laid out among their ruins with such exquisite 
beauty. In the centre of the nave and each of its aisles, 
in the centre of the choir and each of its aisles, and in the 
centre of each transept, there was a flagged path, but the 
rest of the groundwork of the church was filled in with 
a carpet of flowers, partly in herbaceous borders, running 
up to the portions of the walls which still rose to some 
height above the ground, and partly spread over rude 
pyramids of fallen masonry. Some of the windows kept 
their arches and their tracery well ; others were torn into 
gaps. 

The ferns and flowers which love such places were 
encouraged to wave from every bend in the tracery and 
crevice in the wall. Only ivy, the common foe of ancient 
masonry and rock plants, was jealously rooted out. 

In the ruined cloister the garth was filled with smooth 
turf, and the cloister walk still covered with its own flags. 


14 Grace Lorraine 

Each little house had its own garden, as in the days of 
the monks. 

Words can express but baldly the atmosphere of perfect 
peace given to the ancient ruins by the masses of foliage 
and blossom, blended by Nature and kept in perfection 
by care, which swathed their bases, and filled their hollows. 
It was difficult to believe that any rock-garden could be 
more wonderful or beautiful, even under Italian skies. 

Beyond lay the grounds of the Manor House, with 
lawns for tennis and croquet laid out in them, and woods, 
and a mountain river running through a little Japanese 
landscape garden. 

The writers and artists, some of them, devoted them- 
selves to purely imaginary work, but the bulk of them 
sought their inspiration at Seacombe. And some of 
them had been not a little successful. In order not to 
depart from their inspiration as their financial position 
improved, they built houses for themselves on choice 
sites on the wooded cliffs above the inlet, and continued 
to haunt Via Pacis. Some of them had had houses of 
their own long enough to have reared families well on 
their way to manhood and womanhood and marriage, 
so that Roger, the Rector’s grandson, and Grace, the 
Squire’s daughter, had not wanted for young society in 
that isolated Devonshire village. 

Grace’s mother had been dead for many a long day, 
and the Squire was a man of over sixty. The Rector 
was nearly ten years older, and the Rector’s daughter- 
in-law, Lady Cynthia Wynyard, might have been excused 
if she had grown exercised over Roger’s future, since 
Roger, after captaining the Rugby and Oxford Elevens, 
and being a little god at school and college, had shown no 
signs of being fit for any career which would make his 
living. He might, of course, become a soldier like his 
father, and he might, of course, with his athletic record, 
become a schoolmaster, but that meant independence in 
neither means nor liberty. He was waiting, in the English 
fashion, amid the admiration of his neighbours, for some- 
thing to turn up. 

Grace, Mr. Lorraine’s only child, was even more beau- 


15 


The College of Via Pacis 

tiful than her mother had been ; her features were more 
delicately-cut ; she was taller, and had much dignity in 
her slender figure. She, too, was brilliant at games, and 
public opinion was sure that two persons, so meant for 
each other, who, when both were at home, had seen each 
other almost daily since childhood, would make a match 
of it. It would be natural for such a high-spirited girl 
to marry a man who had proved his mastery in sport. 


CHAPTER V 


INTRODUCING HESTIA MYRTLE 


HE Manor House of Via Pads, which adjoins and 



derives its name from the monastery, is a stately, 


seventeenth-century house, of red brick, dressed with 
yellow stone, standing near the mouth of the great 
Seacombe inlet, and visible from the sea. 

It is divided from the fishing village of Seacombe by 
a crescent of wooded cliffs, with sand below and, until 
the recent building extensions, an old apple-orchard 
above, half a mile long. 

The Lorraines were at home to the present and past 
members of the Fellowship every Sunday afternoon when 
they were at Via Pacis, and the past members used the 
club-room of the Fellowship, into which Mr. Lorraine had 
converted the Chapter-House of the Abbey, a very great 
deal, with the result that something like a School of Art, 
Music and Authorship had grown up in this South Devon 
paradise. 

The painters chose their subjects largely from the 
wooded shores of the great Seacombe inlet, or the fine 
seas beating on the mighty twin capes which guarded its 
entrance, or the wide sweep of moorland above. The 
authors made Devonshire antiquities and history their 
study, or the backgrounds of their novels. The com- 
posers had some of them visions of making Via Pacis a 
Bayreuth or an Oberammergau. But Hestia Myrtle, the 
lady composer, was an exception. Like Dal Dryander, 
the most prosperous of the ex-Fellows, who^kept up their 


17 


Introducing Hestia Myrtle 

connection with the place, she looked to musical-comedy, 
revues, and popular songs to make her fortune. But 
unlike Mr. Dryander, she had been unable to sell any of 
her music, beyond a few songs, for which she received 
very little. 

She was not greatly afflicted by it. The monastery of 
Via Pacis, where she lived in comfort, without any 
pecuniary cares, was a haven of rest after her hand-to 
mouth struggles in Chelsea, and she was popular, not only 
with her old friend Mr. Sylvester and the past and present 
members of the Fellowship, but with the Lorraines them 
selves, and at the Rectory, where the grandson, Roger 
Wynyard, had just left Oxford. 

Hestia, who was a few years his senior, was a lovely 
creature, so slender and lissom that in spite of her hard 
ships in London she still looked a girl. 

From her Greek mother — her father, a British Naval 
officer, had married in the Ionian Islands — she inherited 
the grace and the features of a Greek statue, and her 
father’s healthy northern blood had filled her clear cheeks 
with a rich damask, and given her the iron-grey eyes one 
finds in those who, like Sicilians, have both Greek and 
Norman ancestry. She dressed her wavy black hair like 
Peitho’s on the frieze of the Parthenon, in a Greek chignon, 
with a fillet of thin gold leaves, which had belonged to her 
mother, to divide the front from the back. But she did 
not try and dress like a statue. She spent all her income, 
and all she could earn, in trying to look as dainty as Grace 
Lorraine. 

Hers was a profession which is not “ hard on ” clothes. 
When she came back from a function at the Manor House 
there was no need for her to go and change into a tea gown 
before she sat down to her piano. Indeed, she never did 
sit down to the piano without being becomingly dressed. 
She liked to look a picture when she was working. Frank 
Dicksee, not Bach, was her ideal in Harmony. 

She was not encouraged at the Rectory so much as she was 
at the Manor House and the Grange. It was not that Roger’s 
mother — the Rector’s daughter-in-law — considered her a 
child of Belial. Lady Cynthia, being accustomed to a 

2 


18 


Grace Lorraine 


society very different from what she found at Via Pads, 
was glad of the company of anything so pretty and lively. 
But she did not care to expose Roger, whom Mr. Lorraine 
wished his daughter to marry, to the temptations of oppor- 
tunity. She was therefore very friendly to Hestia when 
they met on neutral ground, but did not encourage her 
presence at the Rectory. 

Outside the house Hestia was not a danger, since Roger 
showed so marked a preference for the society of Grace 
Lorraine. 

If Grace was not to marry for a title, these two seemed 
made for each other. The heiress could afford to marry 
for love, nor could Roger, who would be comfortably off 
some day, and on his mother’s side came of the best 
blood in the County, be called an ineligible. 

Yet better matches from the social point of view had 
often presented themselves to Grace. The young Lord 
Dartmoor, who seemed to own half Devon, was a declared 
candidate. However, Grace, though she would not 
pledge herself to Roger, showed him decidedly more 
favour than the others. 

Roger, a splendid six-footer, was the fine flower of our 
Public-School system. For he was utterly unspoiled by his 
Rugby and Oxford fame and popularity, and the Public- 
School code of honour working on his generous disposition 
had made him as chivalrous as a Bayard, while the gay 
insouciance which had given him such nerve at cricket 
kept him a schoolboy at heart, though he had left Ox- 
ford, and would soon be called to the Bar, if he re- 
mained in London long enough to “ eat his dinners ” at 
the Inner Temple. 

Roger had no love for London ; he prefered to live in 
his native county, dividing his time between sport and 
Grace Lorraine. His people had no objection. While 
his grandfather was alive, Roger’s private income of three 
hundred a year made him very comfortable, and when 
his grandfather died it would be increased to more than a 
thousand, with the prospect of a further considerable 
increase if he survived his mother. 

A young man in Roger’s position was apt to marry a girl 


19 


Introducing Hestia Myrtle 

with equal prospects, and go through life without working 
for his living, as a country gentleman. And considering 
Mr. Lorraine’s attitude, it would be an imprudence for 
him to leave the field open by his absence. 

It was not Roger who looked at matters in this light, 
but his mother, Lady Cynthia. His father, who had died 
when Roger was an infant, had made such a match with 
her, so she encouraged Roger in his inclinations, and he 
was very much looked-up-to by the County. 

The only person who blamed him for doing nothing was 
Grace Lorraine, who was sensitive to the influences of her 
environment. As long as ever she could remember she 
had been in almost daily contact with the members of the 
Fellowship of Via Pacis. As a child she had played with 
their children ; as a woman she had always had for her 
nearest neighbours authors, artists and composers working 
to make their names, and with their wits and energies 
sharpened by meeting each other at every meal. She her- 
self painted quite fairly. She had tried her hand at various 
forms of writing, and though she had not attempted to 
compose, she was an accomplished musician. 

The achievements of the past and present members of 
the Fellowship were her father’s constant joy and boast, 
because he had founded it, and the fame of Via Pacis was 
gradually becoming known to all workers in the Arts. 


CHAPTER VI 


INTRODUCING THE FELLOWS OF VIA PACIS 

E ARLY in July, 1914, the Lorraines were giving 
their first garden-party of the summer for the 
members of the Via Pads Guild, and the friends who came 
to Seacombe year- after year, attracted by its delightful 
scenery and the society of so many authors, artists and 
musicians. 

This was no common occasion. Mr. Pennylegion, the 
young sculptor who, inspired by the numerous fragments 
of medieval sculpture lying about, had made the restora- 
tion of Via Pacis his speciality, had been obliged to resign 
his apartment in Via Pacis because he had attained the 
enviable notoriety of paying income-tax. 

To show his gratitude to Via Pacis, he had carved 
a well-head of dark red sandstone, which Mr. Lorraine 
placed in the centre of the great court, to match the arches 
of the colonnade. 

The chief business of the day — the drawing of water 
from the new well-head, -and the presentation of an album 
to Mr. Pennylegion, was over, and the members of the 
Guild, past and present, were beginning to scatter about 
the Abbey. 

The centre of the assemblage was Mr. Lorraine, now 
between sixty and seventy, but still slight and erect, and 
noticeable for his mop of white hair, and his benevolent 
eye. He was full of plans for the future of Via Pacis, 
awakened by the contemplation of the well-head. In fact, 
he had begun them on a very considerable scale during an 

20 


Introducing the Fellows of Via Pacis 21 

extraordinary wave of prosperity which he had gone 
through, and was only waiting for his speculations to take 
a favourable turn again to increase them greatly. 

The little colony of Via Pacis was apt to sort itself into 
professions on occasions such as this. The literary clique 
was grouped round Mr. Lorraine, because he had Brooke 
Sylvester with him, the well-to-do bachelor author, who 
had helped the Lorraines to found the Fellowship of Via 
Pacis by choosing the first literary pensioners, and coming 
to live among them in the old Abbey farmhouse, called 
the Grange. 

Grace Lorraine was very fond of the society of Mr. 
Sylvester, a great traveller, and the intimate friend of many 
celebrated people. She did not know which she enjoyed 
most — his collections or his conversations. 

The artists were examining the well-head, making more 
or less demolishing remarks. Only one of them had 
anything to say on its behalf — Rufus How, the Master of 
the Fellowship. 

The two actors in the Fellowship were, like the musi- 
cians, dancing attendance on Grace Lorraine, much to the 
annoyance of Roger Wynyard, who missed his daily singles 
at tennis with the heiress of Via Pacis. 

One of the two, Gaston Bernafay, was the most popular 
person in the settlement. He had once been an Apollo, 
and had failed because he would take no minor part, and 
had never found a manager who would give him a great 
part in a serious play. The parts he desired were those 
which actor-managers reserved for themselves. Therefore 
as years advanced, he was glad to accept a nomination for 
Via Pacis. 

Much absorbed in Hestia Myrtle, who was standing a 
little way from Grace Lorraine, was a Frenchman, who 
bore the ancient title of Count of Val-es-Roses. Both 
played the piano gloriously, and could improvise brilliantly, 
but Miss Myrtle had only lately begun to write down her 
compositions, and the Count never succeeded in selling 
anything of his which he wrote down, probably because it 
lost in the process. He could certainly hold an audience 
spellbound. 


22 


Grace Lorraine 


The Count professed to nurse a hopeless passion for Miss 
Myrtle — “ Miss Myrtle ” was only the concert name of 
Hestia of the iron-grey eyes and rosy velvet cheeks, but 
nobody here knew her real name. He made grand promises 
to her of what he would do whenever he had any money of 
his own again — by this he meant when he succeeded in 
marrying Grace, for that was his real business at Via Pacis. 
The matrimonial agent whom he employed had discovered 
that the wealthy founder of the famous Via Pacis charity 
had a beautiful daughter, who would inherit all his wealth, 
and had made the Count of Val-es-Roses sign a contract 
promising to hand over half of his first year’s stipend if a 
nomination was secured for him. The Count assented 
readily — ten shillings a week and free quarters, far from 
the madding crowd — of creditors, were nqt to be sneered at, 
apart from the chance of the heiress, whose attractions and 
drawbacks could be carefully weighed while he was enjoying 
her father’s charity. 

Dal Dryander, one of the two successful composers who 
had worked their way to fame while pensioners at Via 
Pacis, and had now a bungalow on the sea-front to which 
he came in summer, and sometimes for a short holiday, 
made Hestia and the Count almost live at his bungalow — 
his wife liked the pair as much as he did. They were 
two such delightful people, so appreciative and so charm- 
ingly dressed, for to Hestia dressmaking seemed to share 
with flirting the distinction of being the serious business 
of her life, and the Count could always obtain credit for 
clothes. 

It was a curious thing that Dal Dryander, who had more 
power than any man in London to give composers of light 
music a start, never thought of lifting his little finger to 
help the Count or Hestia, though he entertained them 
constantly. 

Often, the Polyhymnia, as Mr. Sylvester, who had kept 
up his classics, christened the pair, went to the Manor 
House to dinner or for a wet afternoon, for the Lorraines 
were fond of music, and this incidental way for advanc- 
ing his suit for Grace’s hand was one which the Count 
naturally favoured. In France the nobleman who has 


Introducing the Fellows of Via Pacis 23 

decided to marry out of his set for money makes no advances 
of courtship to the lady ; he merely declares himself. 
In England the Count knew that he would have to go 
further. He would have to exhibit himself in the most 
favourable light ; still, the advances would have to come 
from the lady, especially since he was her father’s 
pensioner. Otherwise the English would consider him an 
adventurer. 

Grace asked the Polyhymnia and Gaston Bernafay 
and a few others to stay to supper on that eventful night. 
The Wynyards had been asked, and Hestia was not slow 
to show her satisfaction when they met in the drawing- 
room before dinner, since she could only meet Roger 
at other people’s houses. She loved a fine, athletic, 
dashing man, and she was young enough at heart to enjoy 
being “ ragged ” as much as Roger enjoyed ragging. 

Roger’s ragging was a sore point with Grace Lorraine. 
Perhaps because she was an only child with a pedantic 
parent, Grace had a marked distaste for it. Indeed, 
she might not have troubled with him at all, if he had 
not been physically her beau-ideal of a Briton, whose 
generous and courageous nature commanded her respect. 

She compared him, to his disadvantage, with the Count, 
who discovered her desires, and attended to them with 
the intuition and tact of a poor nobleman whose marriage 
is his profession. 

The Count perceived that she wished her admirers to 
model themselves on her servants, to dance attendance 
on her, in order to anticipate and carry out her wishes, 
without expecting her to do anything in return for them, 
except to smile her thanks. Directly they sought her 
favours their popularity declined. He therefore religiously 
abstained from advances. He had, however, one advan- 
tage over the servants ; he could pose when he was not 
waiting on her, whereas they had to disappear. 

The pose which was most telling was that he was too 
poor, too ugly, too undistinguished, for any woman to 
look at him, while in reality he was as vain as a peacock. 

It was this pose which made Grace out of generosity 
almost encourage him. She found him such a relief 


24 


Grace Lorraine 


after big, breezy Roger, who was always playing for 
some mark of camaraderie, if not of affection, and who 
committed the further betise of taking it for granted that 
artists, authors and musicians — the intellectuals for 
whom the College of Via Pacis was founded — must be as 
unimportant in Grace’s eyes as they were in his. 

It had been a growing determination with Grace to 
disillusionize him on this point, and she thought the 
day of the Pennylegion presentation a very good oppor- 
tunity. So as he buzzed round her with the musicians, 
she only appeared to notice his presence when she asked 
him to perform some service for one of them. 

Hestia saw quite well what she was doing. She sym- 
pathized with the object, but she also sympathized with 
the victim, and did her best to prevent him from feeling 
himself slighted. 

By dinner time Roger had given up angling for Grace, 
and was “ ragging ” Hestia — ragging was Roger’s form 
of flirting. 


CHAPTER VII 


ENTER ARCHITEUTHIS MONACHUS 

T HE night was so glorious that after dinner Mr. 

Bernafay and the Count, who were dancing 
attendance on Grace, suggested that they should go for 
a row, to see the moonlight at the opening of the inlet, 
where Tennyson wrote his “ Crossing the Bar.” 

The Tennyson Rock was a fashion at Seacombe, like 
a logan-stone or a waterfall, and both Grace and Gaston 
Bernafay were fond of boating and good oars, though the 
Count was frankly a “ passenger.” They ran down the 
picturesque stairway cut in the rock to the little boat 
harbour, with a wall almost encircling it, where a boat 
was always tied up, with sufficient rope to let her rise 
with the tide, to take people to the little motor yacht 
or the two and a half ton sailing boat, anchored a few 
yards out so that they could be afloat at all tides. It 
was a very high tide, and the steps for getting into the 
boat were covered. 

Mr. Bernafay began hauling the boat in for Grace to 
get on board. 

“ Jump in, Count,” he said, “ and help Miss Lorraine.” 

“ I'd much better jump in and help him ! ” she said, 
laughing, and prepared to suit the action to the word. 

“ No, no, Mademoiselle, I cannot permit it ! ” cried 
the Count, stepping forward to stop her. 

He could not prevent her, but he made her miscalculate 
her spring and jump into deep water. He screamed with 
alarm, and rushed to the lifebelt hanging on the rail, 

25 


26 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I'm all right ! ” she cried. “ I can swim with my 
clothes on, but I shan’t have to. I’ve only got to hold 
on to the side of the boat while Mr. Bernafay drags me 
in.” 

The steps would have been easier, but she forgot them, 
as they were covered by the spring tide. Bernafay sprang 
into the boat, and leant over its side so as to bend it 
towards her, and pull her in by the shoulders, but he 
was not so expert at this as he was at rowing or sailing, 
and he was fumbling, and Grace was laughing, when they 
heard footsteps and a loud splash. 

Grace, an expert swimmer, knew to the fraction of a 
second the time it should have taken the diver to come 
up, and when he did not come up, cried, “ Rope ! Tie a 
rope round me, quick ! ” 

Mr. Bernafay saw the situation, and lost not a second. 
He passed the rope under her shoulders. She knew that 
he could tie a knot for her to trust her life to. 

“ Pay out the rope until I pull,” she said, “ then haul 
me in — I can’t rise without the rope ; my dress will drag 
me down. Make the other end fast to the thwart, and 
sing out when you’re ready.” 

In a flash he cried, “ Ready ! ” and she let go of the 
boat and sank herself. 

Seconds seemed like minutes. Would she never pull, 
he wondered ? Was she drowned without a struggle ? 
Had that been a pull, after all, or was it only her moving 
about the bottom ? He was sick with anxiety. 

Suddenly he felt a tug, a tug that resisted him like an 
anchor. “ Jump in, Count, and help me ! ” he yelled. 

“ But I have this ! ” said the Count helplessly, meaning 
the life-belt. 

“ Drop the damned thing and help me ! ” 

The Count turned as white as a sheet, and almost fell 
into the boat, but once there he pulled lustily with his 
foot against the thwart for purchase. 

Their burden came up inch by inch. It was a terrible 
dead weight, for both the human beings were insensible, 
and it was a direct intervention of Providence that the 
bold diver whom Grace had sunk herself to rescue ever 


Enter Architeuthis Monachus 


27 


came up at all, for Grace had lost the power to hold on 
to him when she became insensible. 

Nothing could have saved him but the evil beast which 
had so nearly compassed his death. It gripped her with 
the same unrelaxing arms which had bound him, and 
all three were drawn up together — Grace and Roger 
Wynyard black in the face and enveloped in the folds 
of a slimy writhing black monster which looked like a 
devil in the dazzling moonlight. 

They came up to the surface, but to haul such a dead 
weight over the gunwale was impossible. Their lives 
depended on seconds. But Mr. Bernafay did not lose 
his head and the cord under Grace’s shoulders was close 
up to the iron row-lock. 

“ Pull double for a second ! ” he cried to the Count 
and managed to hitch the ring of rope round the row-lock 
before the Count gave way — by God’s grace the monster 
was holding, not pulling. 

But there was a fresh danger. The weight on the row- 
lock almost dragged the gunwale under water. 

“ Jump ashore ! ” he cried to the terrified Count, and 
loosing the end of the rope from the thwart, he passed it 
to him. “ Make it fast,” he cried, pointing to the iron 
ring to which the boat was moored. 

Then he jumped on the quay to make sure that the 
knot would stand. As he sprang, the boat swung away 
and tipped, and the row-lock came out. The two bodies 
and the monster sank like lead. 

“ My God, they’re gone ! ” he cried, with sickening fear. 

But the rope went taut ; it held. Still he was hopeless 
now. With no purchase for his feet and only the Count, 
big fellow as he was, to help him, he could not hope to 
haul Grace and Roger out at all, and if they came up as 
easily as a fishing-float they must be dead already ! And 
if they were not, how were he and the Count to resuscitate 
them ? Each body would need at least two skilled men. 
The few moments in which everything had happened had 
been like an hour. It was all over now. But he pulled 
blindly, and with all his might, and the heavy Count 
tugged the rope wildly too. 


28 


Grace Lorraine 


Then there was a rush on the quay behind them. 
Strong expert hands took the rope from them, drew the 
bodies up, drew them to where they could be swung upon 
the steps, drew them in. 

The body of the monster was as big as Grace, and it 
had arms like pythons. Two of them, three times the 
length of its body, were not twined round the victims, 
but adhering one to each of them by their extremities, 
and writhing the unused length between. The eight 
shorter arms were folded, not coiled, round the victims, 
folded and pressed like gigantic fingers, and were dragging 
them towards the terrible beak which the monster uses 
for tearing its prey to pieces ; having two victims to 
assail, it had not, after the manner of its kind, used some 
of its arms for anchoring itself to the rock, or they never 
could have torn it from the bottom in time. 

Even while they were pulling them on to the quay, 
one of the shorter arms detached itself to seek the rock, 
and showed on the under side of its leathery surface 
toothed suckers, each like the maw of a baby monster, 
an inch across. 

“ Cut these arms away for your lives, men ! " cried 
Dr. Humphrey. “ There is not a second to lose in 
resuscitating them." 

“ They’ll be dead first," said the coxswain of the life- 
boat, with fierce decision. “ Stand clear." 

The men, accustomed to obey him, leaped aside. His 
long knife flashed from his hip, and he plunged his hands 
in towards that terrible beak, drawing the knife through 
the monster’s brain quite easily. Its vile head, with its 
gigantic staring eyes, collapsed, and its arms shivered 
and stiffened, and fell off the two bodies, which the old 
doctor, without waiting a fraction of a second, laid right 
for the water to run out of the lungs. And then artificial 
respiration began, with two lifeboat-men working at 
each, and the doctor with his ripe experience to guide 
them. 

The doctor did not so much as look at the dead monster, 
though it was the first time that one had ever been brought 
into his ken. Nor did the men who were helping him. 


Enter Arehiteuthis Monachus 


29 


Life and death were in their hands. But the men, who 
were standing by, crowded round it, and asked questions 
of the grim old coxswain. 

There was nothing which they could do for Roger and 
Grace, until it was their turn to relieve the others. The 
Count was with them, scared out of his life, but asking 
more questions than any of them. 

Mr. Bernafay had hardly looked at it. He seemed 
to think that if his attention relaxed from his friends, their 
chance of life would lessen. He stood by Hestia. 

It was Hestia Myrtle, the composer, who had saved them. 
Love lent her wings. She had a soft corner in her heart 
for all nice men, and Roger she adored for his splendid 
manhood. She was ready to give herself to him body 
and soul if he but lifted his little finger, and she had been 
sitting with him on a seat half-way down the cliffs, promis- 
ing herself a golden hour as soon as the boat had shot 
away from the steps, when they saw the accident happen. 

She saw Roger dash down the steps and dive in. He did 
not come up automatically. She, too, knew that some- 
thing grave must have happened, and flew back to the 
garden, where she had seen Dr. Humphrey, the kindly 
old man who had attended to the mortal ills of Seacombe 
for nearly half a century, serving out a glass of grog and 
tobacco to the crew of the lifeboat. The Pennylegion 
reception was followed in the evening by a sort of fete 
for the townspeople — the local band and Japanese lanterns 
— to which the lifeboat-men were, as usual, invited. 

“ Will they live ? ” gasped Hestia to Dr. Humphrey. 
He had to leave the work of the artificial respiration to 
the lifeboat-men ; he had trained them to it, and the 
fatigue was too great for his age. 

He said “yes" to encourage the workers. But he had 
small hope himself. They had been in the water too 
long, especially Roger. 

The men who were helping the doctor to resuscitate 
the bodies were appalled by the colour of their hands 
and faces, and drew his attention to it. Being a scientific 
man, he knew the cause, though he had never seen it in 
operation before. 


Grace Lorraine 


80 


“ It’s a calamary,” he said, “ and that black’s the ink 
with which he hides himself, like the squids you use for 
bait. He is a kind of giant squid himself.” 

They knew about squid’s ink, and were satisfied. They 
had no time for questions, but the others, who were stand- 
ing round their coxswain, were gaping with questions. 

” It’s moonlight,” he was saying, " and you can’t see 
it, but if it was day you’d find that one of that size had 
filled the whole boat-harbour with his ink, and yards and 
yards outside it.” 

“ Squid, did you say it was, Josiah ? ” 

" Devil-fish, and I have seen bigger — two or three 
times bigger — on the banks of Newfoundland, where 
I ’spect this one come from. You find ’em floating on 
the banks in hot weather, but they live in caves under 
the sea, or holes in the reefs, like you get under the Giant’s 
Head.” 

“ And what be all they little mouths he’s gotten on 
his arms, Josiah ? ” 

“ Suckers, and it’s right lucky that they two ” — he 
pointed with his eyes to Roger and Grace — “ had their 
clothes on, and weren’t for bathing. For they suckers 
burrow right into naked flesh.* I have seen a drowned 
man who was taken from one of them, and I’ll tell you 
summat, Ben — if you mates had cut his arms off, as you 
started in to, you might ’a’ had to drag the suckers out 
one by one. They as know ’em best, ’as told me that the 
only thing to make ’em loose everything altogether is to 
do as I did, and pass a sharp knife through their brain — 
or bite it.” 

“ Does he do much with that bill o’ his, Josiah ? ” 

“ Tears you like an eagle — not as I’ve ever seen one — 
I mean an eagle.” 

“ And how did he get here, do you reckon ? ” 

“ Common off Norway, in summer, and a good few of 
’em off the west coast of Ireland. These big ones only 
come up in the summer — ’s said for the rest of the year 
they keep in their holes in deep water, just fishing with 
those long arms o’ theirn. I met a man once who’d seen 
* This is not a fact* 


Enter Architeutliis Monachus 


81 


the dead body of one eighty feet long — the body, mind ye, 
not the arms. That was out Newfoundland way, too. 
But I’ve never seen one above fifteen or twenty feet in 
the body, when 1 was cod-fishing on they banks, for a good 
part of my life.” 

“ And what kills ’em, Josiah ? Did you ever hear 
tell of that ? ” 

“ Nobbut the sea-sarpint, which is a mortal big conger, 
as I’ve heerd tell, and it’s our congers as go for the smaller 
ones in these seas. I’ve caught conger with a devil-fish’s 
arm almost as big as ’emselves inside ’em.” 

“ Four more men, please ! ” said the doctor’s voice, 
and they all started forward to offer themselves, leaving 
the Count as the coxswain’s sole auditor. 

While the lifeboat-men were handling the bodies on 
the old method, which was still in vogue in that remote 
part, Hestia stood watching. She did not utter a sound, 
but her nails were cutting deeply into the palms of her 
hands, as she watched the sharp fight with death, 
and when her anxiety grew beyond bounds she gripped 
Mr. Bernafay’s arm convulsively. 

When the bodies were pulled out of the water, the 
lifeboat-men, who had handled many a half-drowned man, 
after turning them face downwards, to let the clogging 
water run out, swiftly turned them over again on their 
backs. 

While they were doing this, the little old doctor was 
taking out his pocket-book. How could he find time 
for such a thing at such a moment ? Hestia wondered. 
But he only opened it to take from the pocket, where they 
reposed with other things which are needed in such a 
terrible hurry when you do need them, two rubber bands, 
with which almost instantaneously he fastened the tongues 
forward. Sitting astride each body a stalwart lifeboat- 
man seized the victims’ arms below the elbows, and 
extended them above their heads and counted 
“ one, two, three,” slowly, then drew down the arms 
again, and pressed them tightly into the sides, again 
counting “ one, two, three,” slowly. Each pumping up 
and down took only four seconds, though it seemed so slow. 


32 


Grace Lorraine 


After a while, short, though it seemed so long, Hestia 
could see them change their time, and a change come 
into the little doctors eyes, for it meant that the operators 
were detecting a little effort of breathing in the bodies, 
and were timing their efforts to it. No one but an expert 
knows how exactly the two must synchronize. 

At once the little doctor was down on his knees, with 
his stethoscope, beside the gaunt, drenched figures, which 
half an hour before had been like a Helen and an Apollo 
in their beauty. With Grace he was soon satisfied ; with 
Roger it was a long minute before he turned to the anxious 
woman beside him. 

“ They must be alive,” he said, “for I can still hear 
their hearts beating. It's as faint as the footstep of a 
gnat, but it’s there.” 

“ Thank God ! Thank God ! ” cried Hestia, sinking to 
her knees beside Roger. 

At last Grace opened her eyes. Why did not Roger 
open his eyes ? Hestia asked of Heaven, under her 
breath. If he was alive, would he not open his eyes like 
Grace ? He must have slipped back into Eternity. 

The men kept on. She dreaded lest they were keeping 
on after life was extinct, so as to give him every chance 
when every chance was gone. But at length, he, too, 
opened his eyes, and turned them on her. There was no 
sight in them. He did not know that she was Hestia. 
He did not even know that it was a woman kneeling beside 
him, watching him and adjuring the Deity. 

The time occupied by the artifical respiration process 
was terrifying to Hestia. Relays of workers — fortunately 
there were relays, because eight or ten men had been with 
the doctor when he was summoned — seemed to be working 
for hours. It was, by the watch, more than an hour 
before their labours had been sufficiently successful for the 
patients to be moved into the house. It was not until 
they would soon be in a condition to be moved that any 
word of what was going on had reached Mr. Lorraine 
and his guests. A separate stall had been arranged for 
the lifeboat-men’s grog, which no one else was taking, 
so they were isolated when Hestia ran up to Dr. Humphrey ; 


Enter Architeuthis Monachus 


33 


and they had worked so long with him that he had only 
to sign to them to follow him. 

The servant in charge of the grog was not concerned 
about their sudden departure. She supposed that the 
volatile Hestia had some pleasant surprise or new form 
of entertainment for them. 

So completely had everyone been kept in the dark 
that Mr. Lorraine almost fainted when a lifeboat-man 
tramped up to him, and asked for hot blankets and hot 
milk to be prepared, because two people had been almost 
drowned. 

“ Who ? " he exclaimed, in a fever of anxiety — “ my 
daughter ? " 

“ Yes, Miss Grace, and Mr. Roger, sir. They’re all 
right now, when they’ve had a good night’s rest." 

“ Why did I not hear about it till now ? ’’ Mr. Lorraine 
asked, in a tone very unusual for him. 

“ Dr. Humphrey did not send me, sir." 

The little doctor knew that it was kinder not to send, 
until Grace and Roger were definitely alive or definitely 
dead. 

But when they had been rolled in the hot blankets 
and put to bed, with hot water bottles at their feet, and 
with two lifeboat-men giving them hot milk, a little at a 
time, to drink, their relatives were admitted, but not to 
speak. 

The doctor himself stayed until they had passed into 
a heavy and prolonged natural sleep, which lasted until 
the middle of the next day. 

When they woke again, apart from the slight cough, 
left by water hanging about the lungs, and a little giddi- 
ness, which gradually passed off, they were practically 
themselves again, with no traces of the accident except 
the painful memory. 

Neither Mr. Lorraine nor any of his guests who saw it 
would ever forget that terrifying spectacle when the last 
heirs of the Lorraines and the Wynyards were carried 
by the lifeboat-men on shutters as if they were dead, 
through the white glare of the moonlight into the great 
portal of the darkened Manor House. 


3 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE HOUSE OF CARDS 


HE fateful night had passed. Hestia Myrtle, like 



i Roger's mother, had not been to bed at all, but 
had been passing from room to room, watching them 
both, with Lady Cynthia, for Roger’s sake. 

But it was not until afternoon tea-time, when she 
had left them and they were down in the dining-room, 
and were feeling not much the worse for the shock, that 
Grace and Roger learned from the doctor, who had come 
in to report on them and take a cup of tea, how much 
they owed to her. 

“ We must go and hunt her up to thank her, Roger," 
said Grace, the moment they had finished a meal whose 
heartiness reassured Dr. Humphrey. 

Hestia was in the room where she did her composing 
in her monk’s house on the west side of the great court. 
The colour scheme of her cushions and her curtains gave 
the room beauty, in spite of the uncostliness of the 
materials, and they were her proper milieu . 

A woman’s eye told Grace this at a glance, as Hestia 
lay stretched on a couch in a Greek chiton , made of fine 
white linen, with a flame-coloured border, and slender 
sandals, copied from a Muse’s in the Vatican, which 
betrayed the gleaming whiteness of her feet. Their 
arrival had awakened her ; people did not often go through 
the ceremony of ringing at Via Pacis ; they passed in and 
knocked at the sitting-room doors. 

‘ Come in," droned Hestia, in a tired voice. 


34 


The House of Cards 


35 


She did not show her tiredness until they noted the 
blue rims under her eyes, for the warmth of sleep had 
restored to her clear dark cheeks the lovely crimson which 
damasked them. 

“ Well, Hestia,” they began — both of them called 
her Hestia, though she was some years older than Roger, 
and at least an additional couple of years older than 
Grace ; “ we’ve come to thank you for saving our 
lives.” 

“ I didn’t save them,” said Hestia. “ I wish I had.” 

“You did — it was your bringing the lifeboat-men that 
did it.” 

“ Well, I couldn’t do less.” 

“ It’s a good job that you didn’t ! ” said Roger grimly. 

“ I hope that you have not saved us to your own un- 
doing — you know the old proverb ! ” said Grace. 

“ How could it be anything but good luck for me that 
you were not killed ? ” 

“ I think that the proverb has something to do with 
Fate resenting interference, and inflicting vengeance on 
the offender.” 

“ Oh, don’t,” said Hestia. “ I shall always be looking 
out for a fair woman and a dark man when I’m telling 
my fortune on the cards.” 

“ Come in and dine with us, and tell all our fortunes 
this evening, Hestia. Dad wants to pour out his 
gratitude.” 

“ Yes, I’ll come. I love champagne, and your father 
said he’d never have his dinner without opening champagne 
when I was present.” 

“ I won’t let him forget,” said Grace, in high good 
humour. 

“ And come in that ancient Greek robe,” Grace had 
said. “ Dad is your devoted slave already, but this will 
put the lid on, as Roger would say.” 

It was not without design that she introduced Roger’s 
name. She wished Hestia to know that she approved 
of her camaraderie with Roger. It was camaraderie, 
not love, which she herself desired from Roger, and 
Hestia was a valuable pawn in the game. 


3 


86 


Grace Lorraine 


She knew that she could afford not to be jealous — 
that Roger’s heart was hers, that she had but to hold 
out her finger for the falcon to come back to her wrist. 
It was she who had drawn Roger’s attention to the way 
in which the border of the chiton , halfway between gold 
and rose, heightened Hestia’s attractions. She knew how 
Hestia would look at the piano, with the soft light of 
wax candles silhouetting her against the darkness. She 
smiled indulgently. 

Mr. Lorraine was in his gayest spirits. He liked music, 
and he liked the society of a charming woman. But he 
never invited Hestia Myrtle to the house himself, unless 
there were several guests. He thought that he might 
lay himself open to aspersions which would be undignified, 
and inspire Grace with the dread of a stepmother. 

When Grace invited her, which she often did, the 
position was different, and cordiality was politeness. 

He met Hestia in the rock-garden, which had once 
been a stately Abbey church. She had just come into 
it through the postern door on the north side, used by 
the monks when they came into the church from their 
cells at night, or in bad weather. The north transept 
was the most perfect part of the ruin. The walls were 
high enough for the window arches to be intact, and 
most of the tracery remained, lovingly garnished by 
Nature with a wealth of snapdragons and flowering capers 
and the small ferns which root themselves in mortar and 
defy the sun. The fallen stones heaped against the walls 
were filled with rich tufts of Mediterranean flowers. 

She was contemplating them with delight. Before 
she found her haven of rest at Via Pacis, Hestia Myrtle, 
to get away from a man in Chelsea, had spent some months 
with Mr. Sylvester and his niece, in wandering from one 
“ promised land ” to another in Italy, and Hestia had 
only too vivid a remembrance of the effects, if not the 
names, of its wild flowers. 

“ I can never thank you enough for bringing Italy to 
Devonshire ! ” she said. “ It has doubled the gift you 
made in establishing me here.” 

“ It is nothing to what I intend to do, when the invest- 


The House of Cards 


37 


ments which I have made have had time to fructify. 
May I tell you how beautiful you look in that chiton , 
Hestia ? ” 

“ Of course you may — anyone may tell me nice things.” 

Hestia had never enjoyed the luxury of a dinner at 
the Manor House more. The room, the shining plate 
and glass, the fine napery, the well-trained men-servants, 
the dainty food, the flowing champagne, all filled her 
with a sense of well-being. And as everyone in the room 
felt that her presence of mind had saved the lives of Grace 
and Roger, she enjoyed a banquet of gratitude and sym- 
pathy also. 

She looked really beautiful, as she advanced to the 
piano when they had taken their coffee in the drawing- 
room, to play herself into the emotional fever which set 
her powers in motion for telling fortunes. 

Grace lit the wax candles at the piano — they would 
not be needed for another half-hour, or maybe an hour, 
but there must be nothing to break the spell when Hestia 
had started. 

There she sat, playing without music anything which 
appealed to her mood, from Schumann to fragments of 
musical comedy, passing to compositions and improvisa- 
tions of her own, as she warmed to her task. 

The music was lost on Roger, and, except for its sensuous- 
ness, on Mr. Lorraine. But they were none the less filled 
with pleasure. It was such a joy to let their eyes dwell on 
the waving black hair, in its ancient Greek coiffure ; 
the light profile, suggestive of swift decision, and sym- 
pathies as swift, when the smile showed the even ring of 
small, shiny teeth ; the soft, crimson mouth, and the 
noble curve of the chin, as she played with the notes. 
She had a caressing and extremely graceful way of laying 
her hands on them, and the grace seemed to be com- 
municated to her whole body. Her arms, bare to the 
shoulder-brooches, were as white and perfect as a statue's. 

How often would Roger and the Lorraines in the dark 
months before them recall that exquisite Greek figure, 
silhouetted by the soft wax-candle-light against the fine 
Stuart furnishings of that noble Stuart chamber. 


38 


Grace Lorraine 


Every now and then, when she had finished a piece, 
she turned round to comment on it, in a low voice, full of 
simpatica. 

Neither Roger nor Mr. Lorraine knew exactly what 
she was talking about, but they liked the way she said 
it. Grace was a good musician, though she was incapable 
of creative work herself. 

While Hestia sat and played, growing lovelier and 
lovelier with excitement, Roger was guilty of medita- 
tion — an infrequent crime with him. Why did he 
not propose to Hestia ? He knew what an adorable 
lover she was, for she had let him make love to her, and 
if she was not as beautiful as Grace, there were moments 
when, as now, she was lovely and Sapphic as Grace never 
allowed herself to be. That Hestia would marry him he felt 
sure ; she never said him nay seriously. He was equally 
^sure that Grace would only feel relieved if he dropped 
the subject of marriage, and was content with her friend- 
ship. Why should he go on kicking against the pricks ? 

But as he was thinking these thoughts, his eye chanced 
to fall on Grace. She had been feeling the music intensely, 
and it had set her thinking of the uncompleted tragedy of 
yesterday, when Roger, the greatest friend she had ever 
had, that superb specimen of manhood, so fearless and so 
chivalrous, who would be one of the phalanx of Epaminon- 
das if his country should ever need a levee of her sons for 
war, so nearly died a nameless death. It was nothing that 
she did not need his help. It counted in his favour that 
she had so nearly to lose her life in saving his ; that he would 
have been dead now if it had not been for her courage and 
tenacity. She had never felt so nearly able to say yes to 
the suit which was always on the tip of Roger’s tongue. 

When Roger’s glance fell on her, her eye met his, and he 
saw a new Grace, whom he had never met before, so like 
a lover that the image of Hestia faded from his heart, and 
he determined once more to put his fortunes to the 
test. 

Some subconsciousness that she was entering a new 
domain may have prompted Grace to get up and ask Hestia 
at the conclusion of the part of Rosamunde which she was 


The House of Cards 39 

playing, whether she had played herself sufficiently into 
the mood. 

Hestia nodded, and came down the room with an Eastern 
subtlety of movement, which went as well with the fortune- 
teller as the Greek coiffure and the clear, iron-grey eyes 
under the unbroken line of the eyebrows. 

A new pack of cards was lying on a small square table, 
with an ample green cloth. Hestia broke the paper round 
them, and sorted out the twos, threes, fours, fives and 
sixes. 

“ I could have given you a bezique pack,” said Grace, 

“ if I had known you were going to sort the other cards 
out.” 

“ Whose fortune shall I tell first ? ” asked Hestia. 

“ Your own, to see if you're going to suffer by saving 
our lives ! ” cried Grace and Roger simultaneously. 

“ It’s rather unlucky to tell one’s own fortune, so you 
must shuffle and cut them for me.” 

Grace shuffled them with such ease and rapidity that 
Hestia said, “ I could tell that you’re a bridge-player 
without any fortune-telling. Cut them into three packs, 
please, towards me.” 

Grace did, and Hestia turned them face upwards, and 
began dealing them out in threes, taking the highest card 
of each — or, where they were all three of the same suit, 
she took all three of them — and began arranging them 
in a horseshoe. 

\The first card which turned up was the Queen of Spades. 

“ That’s me, of course, and bang at the end of the horse- 
shoe, where I have no control at all over my own fate ! 
I told you it was unlucky to tell your own fortune.” 

As she dealt out the cards, she continued, “ That King 
of Clubs means a dark man — that’s Roger. And that 
Queen of Hearts is a fair girl — that’s you, Grace. And in 
about six months you are going to do me an injury which 
other people might think vital, only I’m going to 
get over it.” 

“ How do you know that, Hestia ? ” asked Grace. 

“ From the position of the cards. A nine and an eight 
of Spades, which are very bad, come together, but there is 


40 


Grace Lorraine 


a good Heart card next — the nine of Hearts, the wish- 
card, which gives you your heart's desire. The nine of 
Spades is a very unhappy card — the worst in the pack — 
and the eight means delays, tears, and disappointments." 

She had got to the end of the cards, and handed them 
back to Grace to shuffle. When they had been cut and 
turned face up again, she said : 

“ What’s this ? The cards are very black, but I am 
protected on both sides, so that they won’t actually 
injure me." But when, at regular intervals, every seventh 
card, she counted all four Aces, she said, “ Something very 
serious must be going to happen, for this is called the 
Finger of God." 

When the cards had been shuffled and cut for the third 
time, the first two she turned up were the Ace and the nine 
of Diamonds. 

“ This means sudden news," she said, “ like a telegram, 
or a telephone. We shall know all about it soon. And I 
hope we shall ! ’’ she added. “ For in all the times that 
I’ve consulted the cards, I’ve never seen anything so 
terrifying." 

“ My goodness ! ’’ said Grace. “ If I’d known that you 
were going to be such a Cassandra, I don’t think I should 
have asked you to dinner ! " 

She had happened to notice that her father looked very 
uneasy. 

“ Aren’t you getting frightened yourself, Hestia ? I 
told you what a risky thing you were doing in saving us." 

“ No — I am right at the end of the horseshoe, where I 
shan’t be able to lift a little finger to help myself. I think 
it’s rather amusing to be a looker-on while Fate is playing 
such a wonderful hand." 

Then she pushed all the cards into a heap and said, 
" Whose fortune shall I tell next ? ’’ 

" Grace’s," cried Roger. 

SJ " Shuffle them and cut them again, Grace," said Hestia. 

Grace gave them another of her lightning shuffles, and 
cut the neat little packs towards Hestia — one, two, three. 
Hestia turned them face upwards, and as she dealt them 
out rapidly into a horseshoe, said : 


The House of Cards 


41 


“ There are a good many Hearts in your fortune, Grace. 
This spells complications." 

She counted rapidly with her finger from one to another, 
and said, " Eventually you will come to your heart's desire 
— that nine of Hearts, there. But there are a great many 
changes between you and it. A dark woman comes 
between you and it — that Queen of Spades — and that eight 
of Spades spells delay and some tears. But the main thing 
is that you travel through to your heart’s desire at the end, 
and then it will be roses all the way." 

" But what's this ? " she said, when Grace had cut 
and shuffled the cards a second time. “ The cards are 
coming out as black as they did for me — no, they’re worse, 
for they are not so well protected ! And there are those 
terrible Aces again," she said, as she counted on. " It’s 
lucky that they’ve said already that you’re going to get 
through all right in the end, or I should be regularly 
frightened for you ! " was her verdict at the conclusion, 
as she heaped the cards together. 

" Now tell Uncle Henry’s ! " cried Roger. 

"No, you have yours told first — I’m not sure that I 
shall have mine told at all," said Mr. Lorraine, whose 
objection to the pastime was increasing. 

" Right-ho ! " said Roger. "I’m dying to hear what 
my fortune will be." 

"You must shuffle and cut this time," said Hestia to 
him. 

He did it so badly that she grew impatient. " Oh, 
muss them together on the table ! ’’ she cried. " I could 
tell where nearly every one of those cards is, with your 
shuffling ! " 

Roger obeyed meekly, and tidied them into a pack again, 
so slowly that Hestia inquired sarcastically, if he did not 
know what he wanted. 

“ How do you mean ? " he asked. " Of course I know 
what I want — I want Grace." 

With anyone else Grace would have been very angry, 
but the number of times that Roger had proposed to her 
and been rejected was the joke of the whole Fellowship, 
so she only laughed, and remarked, " Of course, we all 


42 Grace Lorraine 

knew that, but you mustn’t tell your wkh out loud, or you 
don’t get it.” 

“ Ought I to have been wishing all the time that I was 
mussing them up ? ” 

“ Yes, of course you ought,” exclaimed Hestia. “ If 
you don’t wish while you’re shuffling and cutting, how is 
the unfortunate fortune-teller to establish contact with 
you ? ” 

“ I’m wishing,” said Roger, with a grimace. 

“ Well, you ought to have done it while you were 
shuffling. Dear me,” said Hestia, as she dealt out the little 
packs and counted — she was counting very rapidly now, 
she was so excited ; she had left off telling them what 
individual cards signified, and was reading them off as an 
experienced telegraph operator reads the Morse code — 
“ great changes will take place in your life within a very 
few months, Roger. You will change your profession ; 
you will have a great change in your heart affairs ; you 
will . . .” 

Roger missed what Hestia was saying, because Grace 
broke in with, “ Then I’m going to have some peace ! ” 
while Hestia said, " I’m afraid that you’re a very dangerous 
person, Roger — Heart and Club women both have an 
influence over you. But it does not matter, because the 
dark woman may be older than you are.” 

" Oh, my goodness ! ” said Roger. " I hope she won’t 
be old enough to be my mother ! ” 

“ No, she won’t be that, or it would have been the 
Queen of Diamonds, which means white hair.” 

“ My mother’d be very much obliged to you,” said Roger. 
“ She doesn’t think that she’s at all in the white-haired 
class.” 

“ The Queen of Diamonds doesn’t always mean white 
hair,” explained Hestia, laughing. “ It sometimes means 
a spiteful woman. But your old woman is quite nice, 
anyhow. Shuffle them again, please, Roger.” 

When he had shuffled and cut, and she had resumed, 
she began to look very grave, for the eight, the Ace, and 
the ten of Spades came out together. 

“ I can see by your looks, Hestia,” he said, " that this 


The House of Cards 43 

is something very bad. But don’t hesitate to tell me — I 
expect I shall bear up.” 

She still hesitated. 

“ Honestly,” he said, “if I was going to be killed 
to-morrow, I should like to know it, so that I shouldn’t 
waste too much time on giddy-oxing.” 

“ Well, of course, if you must know,” she said, “ these 
three cards coming together generally mean death — or, 
at any rate, an illness very near death, or imminent danger 
of death, if they are not protected by a very good card, 
and if this combination comes up again and again it means 
death, especially if the fortune-teller is one of those who 
leaves the two of Spades in.” 

" What's the two of Spades ? ” he asked. 

“ It’s called the coffin,” was her answer. 

“ I think I’d better touch wood,” said Roger, fumbling 
under the cloth for the leg of the table, and then, shuffling 
and cutting the cards which she pushed towards him with 
an alacrity which defied Fate. His courage seemed to be 
rewarded, for the rest of the cards occupied themselves 
with his matrimonial problems, in which it was foretold 
that he was going to be parted from a beautiful fair woman 
at the very moment of marriage. Grace was to have a 
reprieve, it appeared, for the cards ended up with the 
triumph of the dark woman. 

“ I don’t care,” said Roger. “ I’ve got off that calamity, 
with all those black cards, and the four Aces bobbing up 
so pertinaciously. I’m not in for that, anyway ! ” 

“ I’m afraid that you can’t tell,” objected Hestia. 
“ The cards are funny things, and when your own life is 
going to be very full of events, things which are going 
to happen to everybody get crowded out.” 

“ I can do quite well without them, thank you,” said Roger. 

Then all three turned to the Squire. “ Now Mr. 
Lorraine ! ” cried Hestia. “ Now, Uncle Henry ! ” cried 
Roger. “ Now, father ! ” cried Grace. 

“ No, I’d rather not,” he protested. “ I really hate this 
sort of thing. It gives me the creeps.” 

“ Like the people who don’t believe in ghosts, but are 
afraid of them ? ” suggested Hestia. 


44 


Grace Lorraine 


“ Exactly. I don’t believe in it, but it makes me 
shudder. If you told me the sort of thing that you’ve just 
been telling Roger, it would get on my nerves horribly. ” 

“ I’ve never given anyone such a bad fortune as I’ve 
given Roger.” 

“ Well, I’d rather not chance it.” 

“ Oh yes, you must,” urged all three, so vehemently 
that he felt as if it would be a slight on Hestia if he did 
not yield. 

“ Don’t forget to wish, Uncle Henry,” cried Roger, 
as he began to shuffle. 

Mr. Lorraine smiled gravely. “ I shan’t forget to wish.” 

No sooner had Hestia begun to deal out the three little 
packs than the cards began to come up as black as they had 
for Hestia and Grace, and when she began to count, there, 
at regular intervals, every seventh card, — were the four 
Aces once more. 

“ The cards are full of something big to-night,” Hestia 
admitted, “ and there’s a black something coming to us 
all. Let’s hope that the last part of your fortune will 
improve like Roger’s.” 

“ What exactly do those four Aces mean ? ” asked Mr. 
Lorraine, anxiously. 

“ The Finger of God,” said Hestia, “ but not necessarily 
evil happenings. It simply means that the Great Power 
intervenes, and lifts people about like chessmen, and alters 
what seem to be unalterable situations.” 

But her face continued to grow graver. “ My goodness, 
what a lot of Clubs ! ” she said. 

" What do Clubs mean ? ” asked Mr. Lorraine, growing 
very uncomfortable. 

“ Business,” she replied. But then, noticing how white 
he had turned, she added, “ But you mustn’t mind, because 
the cards can only tell such a very little way ahead. And, 
at any rate, this last part is nothing at all in comparison 
with that extraordinary repetition of extraordinary combi- 
nations at the beginning of your fortune. Coming out as 
they did, almost exactly the same as they did in Grace’s 
and mine, they are the most extraordinary declarations of 
the cards which I ever remember. If I was really super- 


The House of Cards 


45 


stitious about them, I should expect that the most terrible 
calamity which had ever happened to the world was just 
going to begin — it might be the end of the world, by the 
way that the cards are speaking.” 

“ Pray God that this has all been foolishness ! ” said 
Mr. Lorraine. 

As soon as all their fortunes had been told, Roger began 
to “ rag ” about it. 

“ You’re a bit out in your dates, Hestia,” he said. 
“ Anyone with half an eye can see that this mysterious 
calamity, which none of us can understand on any other 
basis, must refer to my octopus. By the by, what have 
they done with it ? I consider that it’s my property.” 

“ I am afraid that I sent it to Plymouth in a cask of 
spirits, to be preserved in the museum,” said Mr. Lorraine 
apologetically. “ I did not know that you valued it.” 

” I don’t, sir. I only thought that it would be rather 
a pity to throw such a curiosity on the dust-heap, after it 
had been connected with such illustrious persons.” 

“ Oh, Roger, what a joke ! ” gasped Grace. “ How dare 
you, when we are in such an agitated condition ? ” 

“ I don’t see what you’ve got to grouse about ! In 
six months’ time you're going to have a nice dark husband 
— that must be me.” 

“ Of course ! ” said Grace, laughing. " And you’re 
going to have a beautiful fair wife.” 

“ A lot of good you’ll do me if we are going to be 
separated directly afterwards ! That separation (it was 
at the church door, I suppose) is a lady novelist’s wheeze 
— it’s like the desert ; there’s nothing in it. But you've 
pleased Grace, Hestia, because you have prophesied a 
violent change in my way of living, which she’s been trying 
to bring off ever since I left Oxford — even if I have to suffer 
a grievous bodily injury over it, which I suppose means 
losing my heart.” 

" Don’t rag, Roger,” said Grace. “ It isn’t fair, after 
Hestia’s gone through a severe physical ordeal in order 
to ‘ concentrate ’ on interpreting the message of the 
cards.” 

“ I don’t mind him ragging, Grace. I’m so glad to 


46 


Grace Lorraine 


have the dear old boy alive, after that sea-devil had got 
hold of him. There’s something altogether horrible and 
uncanny about it. I never heard of one in English waters 
before — it’s either a deep-sea monster, or strayed here 
from the tropics in the hot weather.” 

Hestia was no longer the dark-browed sorceress ; the 
long, close, black lashes, which curled so delightfully at 
their tips, had drawn a curtain over those black-grey eyes. 

“ Rag away, Roger ! ” she said, putting her hand on 
his shoulder affectionately. “ It will be a cold day when 
you can’t rag any more.” 

But Grace drew him aside. “ Leave off ragging, Roger 
— it’s upsetting father. I never saw him look so gloomy 
before.” 

“ Of course I will ! ” he answered, and going up to 
Mr. Lorraine said, “ I’m afraid that I’ve done something 
to annoy you, sir ? ” 

“ Indeed you have not, my dear boy ! It’s myself that 
I am annoyed with. I’ve always sworn that I never 
would have my fortune told. Quid sit futurum eras fuge 
quaerere. And I wish to God I hadn’t. I am dreadfully 
upset about it. I didn’t think that I was superstitious, 
but — oh, well, I can’t exactly describe what I mean, but 
I wish I hadn’t done it.” 

Hestia, the sorceress, saw more than the cards told 
her. She had told many people their fortunes by the 
cards, and had watched them narrowly to see how they 
took her prognostications. Experience had shown her 
that those who were cast down as Mr. Lorraine had been, 
had invariably some great anxiety on their minds, which 
was aggravated instead of being relieved by what she 
had divined. 

She also divined without any sorcerisms that Roger 
meant to propose to Grace before six hours were over. 
When both of them dined at the Manor House, it was 
Roger’s custom to see the lovely Hestia home. Any 
other woman in the house would have dismissed him at 
the door, but Hestia used to make him come in and tempt 
him to kiss her. 

It was not difficult. Roger, who was deeply and 


The House of Cards 


47 


irrevocably in love with Grace, was aware that he could 
make as much love as she demanded to Hestia Myrtle or 
any other woman, without in the least diminishing his 
affection or single-hearted devotion to Grace. It was 
in Roger’s affectionate nature to make love to some 
woman, but if ever Grace married him, his desire for any 
other woman would cease ; his desire would be to her 
only, because he adored her. If Grace had let him make 
love to her, he would not have been willing to make love 
to anyone else. But Grace never had let him make love 
to her, though she might not object to a mistletoe kiss — 
with others present. 

To-night, when he had only just been snatched from 
a terrible death, partly through her, though not by her 
own hands, Hestia felt specially fond of the gallant and 
good-looking Roger. She would have chanced discovery 
by her neighbours to have a long-drawn good-bye with 
him in the privacy of her own sitting-room. She yearned 
for his kisses ; she yearned to feel his strength. She 
knew that she could trust him to stop where she 
bade him. 

It was only public opinion that she had to dread. The 
constitution of Via Pacis provided no machinery for the 
expulsion of any person who had once been appointed to 
the foundation. To the genuinely philanthropic mind of 
Mr. Lorraine, it had seemed that fixity of tenure was 
absolutely essential before any literary person, artist or 
musician could feel secure in abandoning the struggle in 
the metropolis, terrible as it might be, to retire on a pension 
at Via Pacis. So long as anyone did nothing which 
brought him into the clutches of the police, he had nothing 
to fear but manifestations of the hatred and scorn of 
his fellows. 

For the protection of the community of Via Pacis from 
wolves which might enter in sheep's clothing, or from 
annoyance by trippers to Seacombe, the porter at the 
gate, by arrangement with the Chief Constable, was a 
member of the Devon Constabulary. To remind all whom 
it might concern of this fact, a pair of handcuffs hung 
over the mantelpiece in the porter’s lodge. 


48 


Grace Lorraine 


To save Roger from a quandary, and to give him his 
chance with Grace, Hestia asked Mr. Lorraine to send one 
of the footmen to see her home, guessing that he might 
take her himself. 

He responded with feverish alacrity, and with an 
absence of his usual ceremoniousness, which surprised 
her a little. 

To her amazement, he did not lead the way directly to 
the North Porch, but stopped in the centre of the church, 
opposite a fallen fragment of the tower, which looked 
like a living rock, and was crowned with tall clusters of 
tobacco flowers, standing up like bracken, and filling the 
whole ruin with their fragrance. She thought that he 
was standing in front of them to draw her attention to 
their splendid plumes, and came back to him. But if 
anything had constrained him to stop at that particular 
spot, it was the fall of the tower, which had once uplifted 
so proud a head to heaven. 

He surprised her by asking abruptly, “ Do these things 
generally come true ? ” 

“ What things ? ” she asked absent-mindedly. 

“ The prophecies of our fortunes which you make from 
the cards.” 

What was she to do ? To proclaim herself a charlatan 
by an air of, “You must not take us too seriously ! ” or 
to further dismay a man who was obviously suffering from 
a fit of “ blue nerves ? ” 

Hestia had no hesitation. 

“ Oh, the whole thing is charlatanism — there’s no more 
in it than there is in table-turning, which you know is 
done by the spontaneous generation of electricity, which 
arises when a number of human beings hold their hands 
in a certain way.” 

“ Thank God ! ” he ejaculated. “ I ought to have 
been firm to my principles against having my fortune 
told — you gave me a horrid shock.” 

“ Why ? How ? ” 

“ Because you hinted at such awful possibilities that 
I have been turning over in my mind all the worst things 
that could happen.” 


The House of Cards 


49 


“ That was very foolish/' she said. “ One must not 
attach too much importance to what, after all, is only 
a game.” 

She spoke brave words, like the Welshman in Shake- 
spear's Henry V., but she was far from feeling them. 
Never in her whole experience of fortune-telling had she 
been confronted with such terrifying combinations. She 
wondered herself how any happenings could be dreadful 
enough to substantiate them. 

She need not have stultified herself. Superstition, 
when it is awaked, is far too strong to be brushed away 
like spider-webs. When he had left her at her door he 
almost ran back to the Manor House. 

“ I am going to say good-night to you, Roger, my lad, 
because I have a lot of papers to go through. I daresay 
that it will be two or three o’clock before I get to bed.” 

Roger rose to go. 

Mr. Lorraine motioned him down again. “ You need 
not hurry away because I have to leave you.” 

His daughter did not second the invitation. Roger 
noticed this, and as soon as Mr. Lorraine left them, he 
s£id, " Well, I must be going, Grace. I did not say so 
before your father, because he would have felt that he 
was driving me away, and it might have made him put 
off his letter-writing.” 

Grace particularly did not want Roger to stay. Oppor- 
tunity would be sure to make him sentimental, and she 
had no heart to be severe with him to-night. 

“ Have a whiskey before you go, won’t you ? ” she 
felt compelled to say, and Roger, who had no desire for 
whiskey at that moment, accepted on the principle of any 
port in a storm. 

" Ring for Collins, will you ? ” 

Roger rang, and Collins appeared with the whiskey like 
an automaton. 

“ Help yourself, Roger,” she said, when the servant 
had left the room. 

Roger poured out a very small one, and having thus 
the license to remain a few further minutes, fell into the 
very rut that Grace intended him to avoid. For, taking 

4 


50 


Grace Lorraine 


a cigarette from a case which she had given him on 
some birthday, he picked out a match from a beautiful 
matchstand of inlaid brass on an Arab kursi, and, poising 
it between his fingers before he struck it, he began : 

“ I owe my life to you, Grace.” 

“You risked it for me, Roger.” 

“ I couldn’t do less,” he said, ignoring the fact that he 
could have done so much more by jumping into the boat 
than by jumping into the water. 

“ Nor I.” 

“ It makes me feel much closer than I have ever felt 
before.” 

“ It must be admitted that when two people have almost 
died for each other, and died together, they must be 
the closest friends in the world afterwards,” said Grace, 
regarding affectionately the splendid manhood which 
was her possession, won back from the deep by her own 
strength and bravery, had it not already been hers by 
divine conquest. 

She knew how she had felt during those terrible minutes. 
She had known the agony of death ; she had made the 
supreme fight which a strong and courageous human 
being can make for life — for her life and for the life of 
the man whom she had dived to save. And as she lost 
her senses she had believed that the thread of life had 
snapped, and that all her struggle with death and hell 
was over. 

And what a titanic struggle it had been ! She had 
gone into it with heavy odds on her side. She was an 
expert swimmer ; she had a lifeline round her body, and 
only a few yards to sink herself ; the body of the man 
she sought could not be far — it was shut in by the wall of 
the little harbour. But once down there, she had felt 
herself entangled in the same death-trap into which Roger 
had fallen ; with other tentacles the monster bound the 
arms which were trying to tear its prey from it. She 
could not fight it ; she could not pull the rope to give the 
alarm. Twist her body about as she might, she could 
neither free herself, nor jerk the cord. It was not until 
the monster itself, recognizing another enemy in the 


The House of Cards 51 

cord, attacked it with a tentacle, that Bernafay and the 
Count felt the faint tug which made them pull up. 

What had her thoughts been when she felt life slipping 
away ? Chief and overmastering among them was the 
thought that she must make one more effort for Roger’s 
sake. His only chance of life depended on her. It was 
him, not herself, that she thought of. He was helpless 
and unconscious ; she had her senses, at any rate, and 
hoped against hope that she could extricate herself from 
the bank of seaweed trailers which had drifted into their 
harbour. That her enemy was alive she had no suspicion. 
She knew how deadly the stalks and streamers of seaweed 
bushes could be. Death brought no fears to her, though 
she loved life, and was fighting so hard for it. It was 
Roger, Roger, till the end came. Then she had died, 
as far as anyone can die without the soul leaving the body, 
but after what a fight ! After living a lifetime in a minute ! 

She wanted to know now how Roger had felt. So far, 
they had not spoken of what happened to them in the 
water. They were too full of joy and thankfulness at 
having escaped from it. 

“Tell me exactly what you remember of our accident, 
Roger,” she said, when he had smoked in silence for a 
few minutes, trying to find words for what he was striving 
to say. She had not lighted a cigarette herself because 
she did not wish to encourage him to stay, and now she 
had practically invited him to talk for as long as he liked. 

“ When I got to the end of my dive,” he said, “ I thought 
a big branch of seaweed had drifted into the harbour. I 
was surprised that it was so erect, as it was out of the flow 
of the tide, and thought it the most troublesome seaweed 
for a swimmer which I had ever struck. 

“ I tried to get away from it with all my strength. I 
found I couldn’t move ; it tangled tighter and tighter 
round me, and I got first frightened and then desperate, 
and then I lost consciousness. And if you had not dived 
to save me, I should not have been here now.” 

“ Grace dearest,” he continued, “ there is only one 
way in which I can thank you adequately, and that is 
by devoting my life to you.” 

4* 


52 


Grace Lorraine 


Grace was not prepared for such a lightning transition 
from the subject she wanted to hear about to the subject 
she so earnestly wished to avoid. 

'* But, Roger,” she said — she could not resist a smile — 
" you are not offering me anything new. You’ve been 
wanting to devote your life to me ever since you have 
come to years of discretion. It would be a much greater 
thing if you were to devote your ambition and energies 
to making yourself the sort of husband whom I could 
accept.” 

“ Will you marry me if I do ?” he asked, as if it was 
as simple as proclaiming the banns. 

” Of course I will — if you say good-night directly.” 

” That’s what I have got to do in my marriage with 
the fair woman. I suppose the cards could not have 
refered to this ? ” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE FOUNDING OF THE UNION JACK 
ELECTRICAL ASSOCIATION. 


V 



R. LORRAINE had good reason for being dis- 


1VI quieted by Hestia’s prophecies, for he had 
been guilty of unpardonable folly in the conduct of his 


affairs. 


It had all originated with the sale of Lorraine’s Bank 
at Plymouth, from which about half of his remaining 
income was derived, to the Bank of England and Wales, 
which was in itself a combination of two of the largest 
Joint Stock banks. 

Lorraine's Bank was not a tottering affair, sold on 
account of its weakness, but a wealthy and prosperous 
institution which appealed to the shrewd directors of the 
Bank of England and Wales because it made such little 
use of its opportunities. For this reason they had per- 
suaded Mr. Lorraine to sell right out to them, instead of 
remaining the principal shareholder under their control. 

Their lighting on this opportunity was not fortuitous. 
In fact, the suggestion was made to them by a naturalized 
German, a certain Mr. Oppidan, a friend of Mr. Lorraine’s. 

Mr. Oppidan may have been largely influenced by 
friendship for Mr. Lorraine, since he had a suggestion to 
make for the investment of the money which very greatly 
increased Mr. Lorraine’s income for some years. On the 
other hand, he was certainly not unaware that it was 
much easier to persuade Mr. Lorraine to invest than to 
get the money from a bank in the ordinary way. 


53 


54 


Grace Lorraine 


Having, on his friend Mr. Oppidan’s advice, sold the 
bank, at a very satisfactory figure, his next idea was to 
follow that astute person’s advice and invest the money 
in a business which would bring in a much higher per- 
centage. He made the arrangements for this before he 
finally agreed to sell the bank. 

Patriotism should have stopped him. But being a 
Free-Trader of the old school, he saw no harm in ruining 
British industries in order to make an increase, which he 
did not require, to his income. 

The scheme which the amiable Mr. Oppidan suggested 
to him was that he should start an office for lending money, 
under the implied guarantee of the German Government, 
at a high rate of interest, to a company which bought up 
English businesses connected with the sale of electrical 
apparatus. The manufacturing side of these businesses 
was allowed to die out, and their machinery, for the dis- 
tribution of the commodities in which they dealt, was used 
for the sale of much cheaper articles made in Germany. 
Instead of being manufacturers, they become importers, 
and increased their turnovers and their profits beyond all 
expectation. 

That this diminished the capacity of Great Britain in 
producing articles, which would be absolutely essential in 
case of a war between Great Britain and Germany, did not 
trouble Mr. Lorraine if it occurred to him, because, like 
all men of his stamp, he had refused to believe it possible 
that our Quaker brother would ever quarrel with us. 

Meanwhile his income increased by leaps and bounds, 
until it seemed as if one day he might again be as wealthy 
as he had been before he transfered half his capital to the 
foundation and endowment of the Via Pacis Fellowship, 
on which he lavished large sums of his new profits. 

A few years before the war Mr. Oppidan came to him 
with a fresh suggestion. 

“ Are you satisfied with what I have done for you, 
Mr. Lorraine ? ” 

“ More than satisfied, Oppidan.” 

“ Well, I’ve got a fresh suggestion to make to you. 

I don’t think, well as you’ve done out of it, youlare making 


The Union Jack Electrical Association 55 

anything like what you ought to, for it was your capital 
which established all these concerns, and instead of reaping 
the whole of the percentage which it earns, you are only 
reaping loan interest.” 

“ It's exceedingly good of you, Oppidan. What do you 
suggest ? ” 

“ It’s a long business for me to explain in conversation, 
and for you to carry in your head,” said Mr. Oppidan, 
“ but you have it here.” 

He handed him a typewritten paper in which the sugges- 
tions were set forth with admirable plainness. But they 
were more disastrous to England than ever. A man who 
loved his country as Mr. Lorraine undoubtedly did, needed 
to be as silly as a sheep to find it compatible with his duties 
as an Englishman. 

This point of view did not strike him. He looked upon 
it purely as a business proposition, and as a business pro- 
position it was very handsome and straightforward. 
It proposed, on condition of his putting in an equal amount 
of new capital, to allow him to convert the money, which 
he had advanced to the company as a loan, at par into one- 
pound shares which were worth between two and three 
pounds. 

He had abundant proof of their stability, and from all 
points of view, except that of a patriotic Englishman, the 
offer was most advantageous. The only drawback was 
that all his money for investment was already invested in 
the business. 

He explained this to Mr. Oppidan, who replied, “ Well, 
with a landed property like yours, you could easily raise 
the money on a mortgage, from one or more of the great 
insurance companies at four and a half per cent., and you 
will be making fifteen or twenty. But perhaps that idea 
is altogether unfeasible ? I can’t advise you about that. 
All I can point out is that if you are able to double your 
investment in this way, you will be on a fair way to becom- 
ing a millionaire. You had better take the advice of your 
lawyer, Mr. ...” 

" Skewen.” 

" Yes, Mr. Skewen.” Mr. Oppidan had sized up the 


56 


Grace Lorraine 


narrow Mr. Skewen, and had no fears of the result. His 
interview with Mr. Lorraine had taken place in Plymouth ; 
he had taken care that it should, having an eye on Mr. 
Skewen, whom he had already urged to become a director, 
on very favourable terms, in the Union Jack Electrical 
Association, as it was to be called, on being registered as a 
British company. 

“ What do you think of this, Skewen ? ” said Mr. 
Lorraine, handing him the paper. 

“ I’ve seen it,” he replied. “ I may tell you at once 
that I am about to join the Board of Directors. So I am 
a prejudiced party ; perhaps you ought not to consult 
me.” 

" It’s very honourable of you to put it in that way, 
Skewen, but I prefer to regard it as an evidence of what 
you think of the soundness of the undertaking.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Skewen, “ I have every reason for 
confidence in the concern, since, as your solicitor, I have 
for several years seen the figures of the private business 
which is going to be formed into the company, and know 
what dividends it has paid. But I must warn you that 
I am not taking a large interest in the company myself, 
because I never permit myself to venture more than a 
certain sum in any one speculation.” 

“ That’s a very sound rule,” said Mr. Lorraine, " and I 
confess to hesitating very much before doubling my holding, 
even if I can raise the money without inconvenience. But 
of course I have an enormous interest in doing so, because 
it doubles, perhaps trebles, the value of the money which I 
have advanced to the undertaking as a loan.” 

“ That is, indeed, a tremendous inducement. And of 
course you can raise the money on mortgage on your 
estates. . . .” He paused to think for a minute, and 
continued, “Yes, I think the security is sufficient for the 
amount. And the income derived from the invest- 
ment is so very large that you would be able to pay off the 
mortgage very rapidly. Of course, it is risking everything 
you have. But the risk is not at all commensurate to the 
inducement. 

“ I do not say this lightly, sir,” he continued, " because 


The Union Jack Electrical Association 57 

I have gone into everything connected with the matter 
with extreme care, and I see nothing in this paper which 
is not amply borne out by facts with which I am personally 
acquainted, and reasonable deductions therefrom. I 
must say," he said, warming up, “ that it is one of the 
fairest and most generous propositions which has ever come 
before me. I should do it, Mr. Lorraine, I should do it ! " 

“Very well, Skewen, I will do it. And when you've 
got the papers in order, to show the value of the security 
which we are offering, we must approach the insurance 
company with which we insure my property and see if 
they will arrange the mortgage." 

“ Locally, sir, or in London ? " 

“ I think you might make the application locally. It 
would be of great advantage to the local manager through 
whose hands it goes. And the head office is sure to consult 
him." 

The manager of the insurance company took the extreme 
step of going to Mr. Lorraine privately, and entreating him 
not to mortgage the estate, advantageous to himself as 
the carrying through of the matter seemed. 

“ The investment may be the soundest in the world, 
Mr. Lorraine," he said, “ but I don’t think that, even 
if it is not entailed, any man has the right to mortgage the 
property which has been in his family for four hundred 
years in order to put the money into a speculation." 

But Mr. Lorraine insisted — he could be very obstinate 
— and in due time the proposition was accepted by the 
company, and £100,000 paid over to the Union Jack 
Electrical Association. 

* * * * * * * 

The profits at first were enormous. The prospects held 
forth in the prospectus were more than fulfilled. 

Unfortunately, in the year 1913, when he had paid off 
the mortgage out of the immense profits he had made, he 
was persuaded to re-mortgage the property for a similar 
extension of the company. It was as if there was an eagle, 
waiting to pounce on him the moment he was out of the 
wood, which indeed was the case, for the orders of the great 


58 


Grace Lorraine 


electric combine in Germany, whose goods were now the 
only commodities sold by the Union Jack Electrical Ass. 
Ltd., were that not only English manufactories which 
could be converted into agencies for importing its goods 
were to be bought up, but also German importers' busi- 
nesses, and this entailed the finding of a great deal of 
capital, which had to be British capital under German 
control. The pure Britishness of the Union Jack Electrical 
Ass. Ltd. was trumpeted in every way. It became a 
factor and almost a nuisance in every electrical business in 
England. 

Mr. Oppidan's mission was to find British capital, to buy 
up British electrical manufactories, in order to close down 
the manufacturing side of the business, and use the dis- 
tributing side for selling the German article, thus killing 
two birds with one stone — finding a market for the German 
manufacturer, and depriving England of a vital commodity 
if she quarrelled with Germany. 

Mr. Henry Lorraine, the chairman of the Union Jack 
Electrical Association, was quite unequal to the post. 

The proverb, " It’s a very good world that we live in, 
to lend or to spend or to give in," applied to him more than 
most mortals. By giving carte blanche and sacrificing half 
his great wealth, he could found a Via Pacis efficiently, but 
if he had had to form a company to do it he would have 
made a grotesque failure. He had no capacity ; he was 
only a patron. 

In the Union Jack Electrical Association he was a cats- 
paw, but while Mr. Oppidan meant to use him as a tool, 
he was sincerely attached to his simple and generous friend, 
and meant also to make him a millionaire. 


CHAPTER X 


DESCENSUS AVERNI 



HE day that Mr. Lorraine paid off the last instal- 


1 ment of the mortgage on Via Pads, out of the 
dividends earned by the Union Jack Electrical Ass. Ltd., 
it seemed to him that the culminating point in his fortunes 
had arrived. By his own sagacity in business he had made 
himself a richer man than he was before the foundation 
of the Fellowship of Via Pacis. 

He had made nearly half a million of money, because 
the hundred thousand one-pound shares, into which the 
money he had loaned to the German company had been 
converted, and the further hundred thousand one-pound 
shares which he had mortgaged his estate to purchase at 
par, were now worth between three and four pounds 
each. 

Though Mr. Oppidan and Mr. Skewen assured him that 
they must go much higher, he determined to sell out and 
invest the money in debentures. 

“ Don’t be a fool ! ” said Mr. Oppidan. “ These Union 
Jacks are as safe as debentures, and bring you in three or 
four times the rate of interest.” 

“ But I don’t want so much money. I shall have to 
give this away to some new development of Via Pacis if 
I am going to get any pleasure out of it.” 

" Think how much more you’ll be able to do as a million- 
aire,” said Mr. Oppidan. “ It is only given to one man in a 
million to become a millionaire. You are one of those 
fortunate people, and you draw back right at the outset.” 


59 


60 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I don’t want to be a millionaire. I only want never 
to be worse off than I am now.” 

" Tut, tut, man ! We can employ profitably as much 
capital again as we have now, and it is only right that 
those who are in the thing already should reap the profits. 
Well obtain leave to enlarge our capital by fifty per cent., 
and allow shareholders to buy at par one new one-pound 
share for every two which they hold.” Mr. Oppidan spoke 
with perfectly honest intentions. He was, after Mr. 
Lorraine — a very long way after — the largest shareholder 
in the Union Jack. 

“ Roughly speaking, I could buy over eighty-five 
thousand of the new shares by selling enough of the 
old ones to find the money.” 

“ Why should you throw away the chance of buying 
fifteen thousand shares, representing at the market price 
of the shares about fifty thousand pounds, when you can 
mortgage your estates again, and raise money at four and 
a half per cent, which is going to bring you in fifteen or 
twenty ? ” 

“ Because I want to draw in my horns, instead of putting 
them out.” 

“ That’s very unlucky. Directly a lucky speculator 
begins to hedge, he begins to lose.” Like most Germans, 
Mr. Oppidan was a born gambler. 

“ I won't do it,” said Mr. Lorraine, with a sudden burst 
of firmness. 

" But have you realized, my dear Mr. Lorraine, that if 
you do it you are a millionaire, for you will hold three 
hundred thousand pounds’ worth of Union Jack Stock, 
and three hundred thousand pounds’ worth of Union Jack 
Stock is to-day worth one million and fifty thousand 
pounds ? ” 

“ A millionaire ! ” gasped Mr. Lorraine. 

“ Yes, a millionaire, my dear sir.” 

The round figures dazzled the Squire. By his own 
brains, after giving away half his fortune, he had multi- 
plied it into a million ! The temptation, the excitement, 
were too great for him. He could not resist them. 

The insurance company, of course, was only too glad to 


Descensus Averni 


61 


take the mortgage again, which had been so triumphantly 
paid off, and the necessary powers for enlarging the capital 
of the company were obtained without difficulty ; a 
company which was paying nearly twenty per cent., and 
had its one-pound shares worth getting on for four pounds, 
was clearly entitled to enlarge its capital, especially since 
the extension was confined to its own shareholders. 

For a short time Mr. Lorraine was a millionaire. 

★ * * * * * * 

Again he announced his intention of selling out, paying 
off his mortgage, and investing the balance in safe five 
per cent, investments. It is easy for a millionaire to find 
safe five per cent, investments. 

“ And have fifteen thousand a year, instead of fifty 
or sixty ! " cried the horrified Mr. Oppidan, picturing the 
effect on the stock of the sale of three hundred thousand 
shares. 

" It’s more than I want," protested Mr. Lorraine. 

“ It may be, but think how much good you could do 
with the rest ! " 

" That’s true," admitted Mr. Lorraine, and once more 
allowed himself to be supersuaded. 

******* 

The limitations of the Union Jack Electrical Association 
had been reached at last, though the war was not yet 
in sight. The directors, who let Mr. Oppidan lead them 
by the nose, had bought so feverishly, not to say reck- 
lessly, that the returns began to decrease alarmingly. 

Much of the property recently purchased had not been 
of the same class as the earlier purchases, but since he 
aimed at a monopoly, it had to be purchased. 

Decreasing profits depreciated the price of the shares, 
and left Mr. Lorraine on the horns of a dilemma. Should 
he sell before they had depreciated any further, and make 
his mortgaged estate and the money he had received from 
selling his bank secure ? He could still do that, unless 
putting such a large block of shares on the market, even 
in the most discreet way, caused a ruinous drop in prices. 


62 


Grace Lorraine 


By doing it he would lose every penny of profit he had 
made by all his speculating. 

He went to see his lawyer about it. 

“ Skewen,” he said, “ I have decided to sell out of the 
Union Jack Electrical Association, lock, stock, and barrel. 
It was bad enough for my nerves when they were going 
up by leaps and bounds. Now that they are going down 
by leaps and bounds I can’t stand it. I’m watching 
and worrying over those shares all day long ; I can’t call 
my soul my own. I don’t think of anything but the 
Stock Exchange.” 

“You can't do this, sir. There are other people in it 
besides yourself, though you are by far the largest share- 
holder. If you sell out, the shares would drop to par, 
and goodness only knows if they would stay there ! 
Think of all the widows and orphans who must have 
invested in the Union Jacks, and who would be ruined, 
if their stock, which is down enough already, slipped 
down to a quarter of what they had paid for it ! ” 

Mr. Skewen was thinking of his own five hundred 
pounds, and his fees as a director, more than he was 
thinking of other people’s widows and orphans. But 
it was a style of oratory to which he was inclined, and 
he knew his man. 

“ I hadn’t thought of that,” said Mr. Lorraine. 
“ Certainly I am not going to have the ruin of widows and 
orphans on my head.” 

Mr. Skewen did not mind the ruin of Mr. Lorraine being 
on his head, though he had received many a hundred 
pounds from him. He felt under no obligation to 
warn him, though he was being consulted as a legal 
adviser. 

Mr. Lorraine, in order that others might not suffer, 
decided to retain all his holding. And Mr. Oppidan, 
having the hint from Mr. Skewen, talked such invincible 
optimism to him that on the day of the Penny legion fete, 
he was able to convince himself that all was well, and 
to make ambitious plans for the future of Via Pacis when 
the favourable turn should have come. 

But Hestia’s fortune-telling reawakened the fears 


Descensus Averni 


0 


which he had put to sleep, and he saw himself standing 
on the brink of the precipice. 

He did not sleep a wink that night. He was con- 
vinced that what Hestia said was true, and that she knew 
it was true, and only accused herself of charlatanry to 
relieve his feelings : he wrote peremptory letters to Mr. 
Oppidan and Mr. Skewen about selling. 

His presentiments were justified, for the morning’s 
letters included a terrifying one from his stockbroker. 
There had been another slump in the shares of the Union 
Jack. 

The meshes of the net drawn round him were now of 
strangling tightness. It had come to this — that if he 
sold out at once, contriving not to frighten the market, 
he might for his entire holding of three hundred thousand 
shares realize sufficient to pay off the mortgage of one 
hundred thousand pounds, but hardly save a penny of the 
money which he received for the sale of his bank. A cutting 
from The Financial News, which the broker enclosed, 
said that the Union Jack directors had over-bought 
businesses hopelessly, that the recent purchases had not 
been worked as thoroughly as the earlier had been, that 
there was, thank goodness, something like an organized 
opposition being raised against the killing of British 
manufactures, and the using of the channels through 
which they had been accustomed to sell for German 
dumps. The dumping, said the article, had been over- 
done. Only such an easy-going nation as the English 
would have tolerated such a clumsy form of peaceful 
penetration. 

He called Mr. Oppidan up on the trunk-line telephone 
at the Union Jack offices in Throgmorton Avenue, E.C. 

“ Are we downhearted ? ” Mr. Oppidan said. “ No ! 
The German Government, though they have not guaran- 
teed the company, as they guaranteed the loan, won't 
let it go down. I’ll have it put forward in the right 
quarter, and we shall get assistance from them until 
the crisis is tided over, and we begin to get our own proper 
returns, and with them our own proper dividends, again.” 

Mr. Lorraine no longer contemplated selling out. 


Grace Lorraine 


What there was left in him of the John Bull rebelled 
against surrendering all his fruits without a struggle. 
But he knew from the reports before him that, unless he 
realized at once, it was impossible for him to meet the 
payments due on the mortgage, so he wrote to the insurance 
company, and explained how affairs stood, and asked them 
to accommodate him on the necessary terms. 

They consented, and the crisis was outwardly tided over. 

But his anxiety allowed him less sleep than a fever, 
in which the patient can only dream, without losing con- 
sciousness. Constantly, when Grace or the butler spoke 
to him, he did not hear what they said, because his dream 
was eternally going over the various stages at which he 
had been inclined to sell out. 

First his dream would go back to that golden point 
when he had paid off the earlier mortgage, out of the 
dividends of the Union Jack, and was deciding whether 
he should sell out, worth seven hundred thousand pounds, 
or go on and, by a stroke of his pen, make himself a 
millionaire. 

The very thought of it maddened him, and it maddened 
him even more to think that he had not got out of the 
Union Jack at the moment when he stood exactly as he 
stood before he went into it. But when his mind reached 
the point at which the shares were worth just enough to 
let him save the lands of his ancestors by sacrificing all 
the money which he had received for the bank, he cursed 
himself for a fool, because he had not seized the golden 
opportunity. That achievement, in his present state, 
overshadowed the two greater. 

The Clubs, which had overwhelmed him when his 
fortune was being told by Hestia, were justifying them- 
selves with a vengeance. But he still nursed hope, until 
the grim prophecies of the four Aces began to materialize. 

More than ever was he convinced of the baneful powers 
of fortune-telling in those days of July, 1914, when 
stocks and shares, in the presence of the great German 
plot for beggaring the world before the cutting of throats 
began, commenced to reel like chimneys in an earth- 
quake, and only the genius and firmness of Mr. Lloyd 


Descensus Averni 


bo 

George and his advisers prevented a universal catastrophe 
— the greatest achievement of any Minister in the history 
of Cabinets. 

The moratorium prevented the sale of any shares 
except at impossible prices. If there had been no 
moratorium it would have taken a bold man to offer five 
shillings apiece for the one-pound shares, fully paid up, 
of the Union Jack Electrical Association, weighed down as 
they were by the common knowledge that the Association 
supplied the machinery for the plot to deprive Great 
Britain of all her makers of electrical apparatus, so as to 
leave her helpless in the case of a war with Germany. 

When war was declared, the directors of the insurance 
company met and since, in spite of notice no interest 
had been paid for four months past, decreed the instant 
sale of Mr. Lorraine’s estates, and during the discussion 
some very severe things were said upon his conduct in 
lending himself to such a scheme. They did not know 
that his behaviour had been the result of pure fatuity — 
that he would have been as loth to help it on as Lord 
Kitchener himself, if he had understood the effect of 
what he was doing, and that they would not have been 
meeting to decree his destruction if he had not indignantly 
refused to act on the intimation which came to him 
through his assiduous friend, Mr. Oppidan, that if Mr. 
Lorraine would let him know how much money he needed 
to save his estates being sold, he should have the loan of 
it from the German Secret Service Fund for as long as 
he required. 

Henry Lorraine prefered bankruptcy. 


5 


CHAPTER XI 


THE SQUIRE BREAKS HIS BANKRUPTCY TO THE RECTOR 
HE Squire, my lady," said her parlourmaid to 



X Lady Cynthia Wynyard, about a month after 
the beginning of the war. 

Lady Cynthia hurried down, and found Mr. Lorraine 
talking to her father-in-law. He was smiling and serene, 
a different person altogether from the harassed and 
depressed creature she had seen a few days before. He 
shook hands and went on talking to the Rector. 

“ I’ve come to tell you, Wynyard, that Tve lost all 
my money ! " he said, almost gleefully. 

The loss might have been the Rector’s own, he looked 
so stricken. “ Oh, my dear old friend, how terrible ! 
How magnificently you are bearing up 1 ’’ 

“ I have nothing to bear up against ! On the contrary, 
it is the first day of relief that I have known for two whole 
years." 

“ Frankly, I can’t understand you." 

“ I was terribly involved before the July debacle on 
the Stock Exchange, and that has broken me irretrievably. 
A few years ago I was making enormous profits — you will 
remember my telling you so when I gave you those large 
sums for extensions at Via Pacis, but I very foolishly 
mortgaged my estate for a gigantic extension of my 
company, just as the bad times began, and have ever 
since then been struggling with the octopus — I think that 
is rather a natural parallel for me to make — of speculation, 
and at each effort the tentacles have been wound round 


66 


The Sqviire breaks his Bankruptcy 67 

me more inextricably. It is only now, when I am 
drowned, and sunk to the bottom of the sea, that I can 
cease struggling. You can’t imagine what a relief it is 
to abandon yourself to your fate ! ” 

“ You must know that you will come out of it all right, 
Lorraine, or you would not talk like this.” 

“ I assure you that I shall not. I have absolutely 
nothing left.” 

“ Are you serious ? ” 

“ Quite.” 

“ Then what will you do ? ” 

“ Appoint myself to the mastership of the College. I 
wanted to take the pension just vacated by John Penny- 
legion, but How insists on taking that and giving up the 
mastership to me. Fortunately we shall have enough 
clothes to last us for a few years, and by that time we 
shall be accustomed to the garments of poverty.” 

“ And what shall you do with the Manor House ? ” 

“It is no longer mine — it belongs to the insurance 
company, and they are going to sell it with all its contents.” 

“ The estates, too, must have gone, I gather from what 
you say ? ” 

“ Everything. The war has lost me a quarter of a 
million at least.” 

“ But the monastery . . . ? ” 

“ The almshouses are safe. The funds for their upkeep 
and the pensions were, as you know, handed over to 
trustees when I made the foundation.” 

“ And you really contemplate taking the mastership ? ” 

“ Sincerely I do, since the power of nominating myself 
to it is the only means of subsistence which I shall have.” 

“You must not do this, Lorraine. It is a very good 
living which you gave me, and I have some private means, 
and there are plenty of rooms in the Rectory. You can 
take the money from the College if you like, but you and 
your daughter must come and live with us ! ” 

“Yes, indeed you must ! ” echoed Lady Cynthia. 
“ And it will be the greatest happiness to us to be able 
to do this little for Mr. Wynyard’s lifelong benefactor, even 
if there were not a further reason ! ” 

5 * 


68 


Grace Lorraine 


“ We are deeply grateful to you both, Wynyard, but 
we cannot accept your hospitality. My speculations are 
entirely my own fault — I will not say that my losses are. 
I read in them the finger of God, which swept all the 
chessmen with which the world was playing off the chess- 
board of the nations, and left them in the chaos of this 
war." — He used Hestia’s metaphors because they had made 
such a profound impression on him. — “ But I am responsible 
for the speculations, and the only way I can pay for them 
is by eating the bread of charity.” 

“ I think that it is terrible for you to submit to this 
humiliation when you have friends who would esteem 
no pleasure so great as having you to live with them 
always.” 

“ I can assure you that I am looking forward to it. 
It will only be the Way of Peace for me. The absolute 
absence of care will be a veritable resurrection.” 

“ What can we do for you, then, Lorraine ? Do let 
us do something ! ” 

“ You shall do something. I know that you have 
some rooms not furnished. You shall take care of our 
household gods when we move out. Our creditors have 
been very generous about this matter : they invited us, 
as an appreciation of the way in which I have disclosed 
every asset I possess and thrown it into the melting 
pot — they have invited us, I say, to reserve any article 
for which we have any personal affection.” 

“ Our whole top story is at your disposal. We don’t 
use any of it.” 

“ A very small room will hold them all. When a man 
has no money, the fewer possessions he has, the better 
off he is. Then he has only himself to protect from the 
weather.” 

“ This may be true philosophy, . Lorraine, but it is 
very hard to put into practice, when household gods 
have been passing from father to son for nearly four 
hundred years.” 

“ It’s only the end of an old song.” 

“ I disagree with you — it is a wound to the community 
in which you live, and to the life of Art.” 


The Squire breaks his Bankruptcy 69 

“ Well, I suppose it is 1 But the wound has been 
delivered, and all we can hope is that the place won’t 
be bought by a nouveau riche who has made his money in 
trade f For he’d be sure to paint and paper it throughout 
and give Maple an order to refurnish it.” 

“ God forbid 1 ” said the Rector. 


CHAPTER XII 


L’ HOMME PROPOSE 


ADY CYNTHIA went off to break it to Roger. She 



was shocked at the calmness with which he received 


the news, but a little relieved when he said : 

“ I’ll go and see Grace to tell her how sorry I am.” 

“You had better go round with your father after 
dinner. He has to see Mr. Lorraine about various sums 
of money which he had promised him for improvements 
at Via Pads, which have been spent but have not been 
paid over. As resident trustee he keeps the journals 
of the improvements.” 

When Roger went up after dinner, he was shown into 
Grace’s workroom. The great round-headed windows 
which filled in the arches of the loggia were all opened 
wide to the sky. The evening was rather chill to the 
pensioners of the monastery, who had gone into the 
library or their own houses, instead of hanging about the 
gardens and sea-front, as had been their wont for the 
past weeks. But to Grace it was stiflingly oppressive. 
She had only heard of their ruin that afternoon, and 
though she was prepared to meet their lot with courage 
and patience, she could not help a surge of hot feelings 
and fierce emotions. 

" Come in ! ” she called out impatiently, as she heard 
the knock at the door. 

“ Oh, it’s you, Roger, is it ? You need not come to 
tell me of your pity ! ” 

His face fell. She knew that she had been cruel. 


70 


71 


L 5 Homme Propose 

“ No, I don’t mean that — I only mean that I know 
that you sympathize with me, but it pains me to hear 
it.” 

“I didn’t come to tell you that,” said Roger ruefully. 
“ I knew you wouldn’t let me.” 

“ Well, what did you come for, dear Roger ? You 
mustn’t mind my being cast down.” She raised the 
violet eyes for the first time since he had entered the 
room, and he saw that the lids were red with weeping. 

" I’ve come to ask you again to marry me, Grace, now 
that the nightmare has been removed.” 

“ The nightmare ? ” she sobbed. 

“ Yes, the nightmare of your wealth — it was a night- 
mare to me, I can tell you l Many a time have I prayed 
that this might happen ! ” 

“ Oh, Roger, how could you be so wicked ? ” 

“ Why, with my three hundred a year, and what I shall 
make at the Bar, I ought to be able to keep you soon.” 

Grace smiled amid her tears. “ Only this summer 
you told me that the reason you were never in your 
chambers was that it was hopeless to try and make any- 
thing at the Bar ! ” 

“ I had nothing to hope for then” 

She could not be so brutal as to point out that he had 
no more to hope for now. “ But, Roger, you mustn’t 
think of marrying and the Bar now — you must go and 
fight for your country ! ” 

“ Aren’t I trying to ? I put my name down for a com- 
mission on the day they issued the notice, both at Rugby 
and Oxford ? ” 

" What would you do if they both gave it to you at 
the same time ? ” 

It was a futile question she knew. She only asked it 
to keep him off the question which he had come to ask. 

“ They couldn’t make me serve in two places at once.” 

‘‘You ought to have heard by now.” 

“ I ought to have heard within a week, since they 
asked for old O.T.C. men to give their names in. And 
I gave my address here — that’s the reason why I am at 
home.” 


72 


Grace Lorraine 


“I’m glad you told me this, Roger. I hated your 
being at home doing nothing, while other men were 
risking their lives for their country I ” 

“I’d go to-morrow if they’d take me ! All I want 
is the assurance that you’ll marry me when I get back, 
if I ever do get back, because an officer has only a dog’s 
chance.” 

” I can’t promise, Roger . . . until you’ve done what 
I said.” 

“ I’ll do anything you like if you will ! I’ll go into a 
shop or anything. ...” 

“ It isn’t that. I’d marry you if we both had to go into 
shops if I thought that I could be happy with you.” 

“ And couldn’t you ? ” 

“ No, I don’t think I could. I should find almost 
anyone in Via Pacis more companionable than you, and 
it’s companionship more than anything else which a 
woman wants when she gives herself to a man. Besides, 
I wasn’t made to be poor, Roger — I can’t tell you how 
I dread it ! You would lead a dog’s life with me.” 

“ Well, what are you going to do when you leave here ? ” 
he asked desperately. 

“ We’re not going away at all.” She groaned. “ Dad 
has nominated himself to the Mastership ; Mr. How 
insisted on taking Mr. Pennylegion’s place.” 

“ And you hate it dreadfully, Grace ? ” 

“ I feel as if I’d rather die. Isn’t it wicked of me, 
Roger ? We’ve given our lives to making existence 
at Via Pacis as ideal as possible, and I’ve told myself 
over and over again that the pensioners ought to be the 
happiest people in the world if they only seek rest and 
freedom from care. But, oh, it’s so different when you 
have to do it yourself, and you’ve been accustomed to a 
full life, and you’ve not been a woman very long 1 ” 

“ But you can come to the Rectory an awful lot, and 
play tennis, and have meals with us — you will, won’t 
you ? ” 

“ I don’t feel as if I could do anything, except live the 
life of a hermit, and read novels with happy endings ! ” 


CHAPTER XIII 


INTRODUCING MR. RICHMOND EBBUTT 

T HE next few weeks were among the most painful 
in the life of Grace Lorraine. 

They were obliged to go on living in their own house, 
in the interest of their creditors. The agents were unani- 
mous in declaring that the chance of getting the full 
value for the house and its contents would be multiplied 
by selling it in the occupation of its owners. A house 
nearly 300 years old, with furnishings which went back 
to its foundation, and to an older house for another 
century, hardly ever comes into the market, and such an 
asset must not be sacrificed. 

They were even asked by their creditors to live on the 
same scale as before, without being wilfully extravagant. 

It was a ghostly and miserable performance, and the 
iron entered into Grace’s soul, though the servants, who 
were informed of everything, performed their tasks with 
infinite good feeling. 

From time to time someone would come down from 
London to look at the place, and Mr. Lorraine would do 
his poor best to be a Barnum, in order to repay the con- 
sideration of their creditors, carefully heeding the caution 
not to betray the fact that he was only a caretaker. But 
it was of no use ; the place was too obviously costly for 
most people, and one or two took objection to the presence 
of the Fellowship of Via Pacis in the gardens. 

So it went on till a day at the end of September, when 

73 


74 Grace Lorraine 

a card was sent in with an auctioneer’s order to view the 
house : 

Mr. Richmond Ebbutt. 

Cin., Ohio. 


The servant was followed by a tall American, clean- 
shaven, with bright dark eyes, emphasized by very red 
cheeks and iron-grey hair as smooth as marble. He was 
dressed in an admirably cut morning-coat, and dark 
striped trousers — in fact, dressed for a town call, except 
that he had a soft black felt hat with a wide flat brim, 
instead of a silk hat. He bowed most courteously. 

** I came to look over this beautiful mansion of yours, 
with a view to purchase. I have always had a desire to 
possess a genuwine antique — it is genu wine, tell me 
that ? ” 

" Most certainly it is — you can see the archives if you 
wish.” 

“ Thanks — I kind of lose myself in that style of writing. 
I’ll take your word for it. Stoo art, I think it said the 
premises were, in the ad. ? ” 

Mr. Lorraine looked mystified. But Grace, who had 
remained with him, was quicker, and said, “ Yes, it is 
Stuart.” 

“Not meaning that any of the family built it ? ” 

“ No, only the period.” 

“ Period’s good enough for me. Can we perceed ? ” 

“ Certainly,” said Mr. Lorraine, leading the way into 
a dining-room, fifty feet long, panelled in dark seventeenth- 
century oak, with efflorescent cherubs and scrolls. 

“ Oh my ! ” said Mr. Richmond Ebbutt. “ And chairs 
to match ! Whose ? ” 

Not getting any response, he turned one upside down, 
with great care, to find the maker’s name. 

“ I know something about furniture,” he said. “ It 
was one of my lines. I know ’most any make of modern 
antique, but I couldn’t quite place these.” 

“ These chairs were made for the house when it was 


Introducing Mr. Richmond Ebbutt 75 

built, in 1607,” said Mr. Lorraine. “ We have the maker’s 
name in the estate accounts, I’m sure. I’ll have it looked 
out for you if you wish.” 

“ ’Nough for me ! ” gasped Mr. Ebbutt. “ America 
was only begun that year from my point of view, with the 
founding of Jamestown. You’d have the accounts for 
Jamestown if it was in your country ! My father went 
west from Virginia — that’s the reason he called me 
Richmond.” 

" We have older things in the Abbot’s Lodging,” said 
Mr. Lorraine, “ things that were there when it came to 
us, but I don't suppose that you would think them very 
beautiful. I gave them to the College.” 

“ The College ? Is it an educational institootion ? ” 

“ No ! a charity. We’ll take you there when you have 
seen the house and garden.” 

“ Abbot's Lodging — a real Abbot's Lodging of the 
olden time ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

" Included in the sale ? ” 

" I’m afraid not.” 

“ I’m sorry.” 

“ But the Master will let you see it every day if you 
wish to.” 

“ The Master ? ” 

“ The Master of the College.” 

“ I don’t understand, but I suppose it’s all right. 
Have the reception rooms got Stooa.it furniture too ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Grace, “ though I am afraid that we have 
introduced some more comfortable chairs and sofas as 
well.” 

“ That’s an idea, too.” 

The room he liked best was a loggia, which had been 
glazed-in — used by Grace as her special room. It was 
full of the little treasures which she had collected on her 
travels, and other pretty things with which a child of 
fortune surrounds herself. 

" These won’t be left, of course ? ” 

“ Everything will be left.” 

“ Then I shall make this room mine if I buy the place 1 ” 


76 


Grace Lorraine 


Grace did not take it as a compliment. She coloured 
angrily. He noticed it, and was pained, and only just 
put his head into her bedroom when they came to it, 
though it had an equal or greater fascination for him. 
It was the first time, rich as he was, that he had been 
brought into contact with the super-elegancies of a woman 
like Grace. 

The stately suites of the house, its other stately appurten- 
ances, impressed him vastly, but they failed to fascinate 
him in the same degree. 

" Don’t show me any more house," he said, before 
they were half-way through it. " I’m informed on that, 
and I’m putting you to a great deal of trouble." 

"Not in the least l I am here to show you everything." 
Mr. Ebbutt did not know how literally the owner of the 
great house was speaking. " Will you see the stables 
now, or the garden ? ’’ 

" Stables don’t trouble me much — my chauffeur lives 
in them, not me. And I have the idea that he does not 
like my putting my head in too much. Garden’s different, 
I guess. Gardeners are often grand, too, but so long 
as I don’t want to plant any flowers, or do any watering, 
I've as good a right to be in my garden as they have. 
Garden next, please, since you say you’re out to show 
me everything." 

They took him first to see the semi-tropical gardens 
on the slopes and in the pockets between the rocks which 
looked towards the south and -the sea. Not feeling sure 
of the effect which the College of Via Pads in the midst 
of his property might have on him — others had been 
deterred by it — Mr. Lorraine wished to influence him as 
favourably as he could before they came upon the dis- 
turbing element. 

His attitude was disheartening. He thought the 
efforts to attain semi-tropical effects very nice, but 
compared with what he had seen in Florida and California, 
the results appeared inconsiderable to him, though the 
cliff stairs down to the sea for boating and bathing 
pleased him. 

But the garden in the ruins, with nice people sketching 


Introducing Mr. Richmond Ebbutt 77 

and reading in it, to which Mr. Lorraine led the way 
diffidently, took his fancy mightily. 

“ There’s nothing like that in all America," he said. 
“ Just to think that you had those ruins there naturally, 
and did not have to put them up for the purpose ! They 
accommodate the flowers just as how they had been made 
for it. It’s fine, it is 1 ” 

“ It was a waste of weeds and fallen stones when I 
came in for the property,” said Mr. Lorraine. “ But I 
had the weeds cleared out, and the stone-heaps turned to 
advantage by skilled gardeners, who knew the most 
effective things to plant, and the result is before you.” 

“ Was it all some kind of building ? ” 

“ A church and a cloister.” 

“To do with that Abbot whose Lodge you spoke of ? ” 

“ Certainly — it was the Abbey Church.” 

“ And where is his Lodge ? You said that I could see 
it any time, and I should like to see it now.” 

“ Why not ? ” said Grace, desperately determining to 
take the bull by the horns. “ You’ll probably like to 
see the Foundation, too.” 

“ I’m sorry, madam, but foundation doesn’t mean any- 
thing to me except a concrete bed for a house-frame. 
Is this some new kind of foundation ? ” 

“ No — a very old one. It began the way that all the 
old monasteries and colleges and almshouses began,” 
said Mr. Lorraine. 

“Oh, a sort of Rocky feller foundation — a charitable 
instifootion ? ” 

“ Yes. You won’t find it any nuisance,” explained 
Grace, rather anxiously. “ The ruins of the church shut 
it out completely.” 

“ I shan’t find it any noosance, ma’am, no how. I 
received my education in an insti/ootion — it was hard times 
drove us west. Is that Abbot’s place where the old things 
are part of it ? ” 

“Yes, it’s the Master's House. I’ll take you across the 
court to it,” said Mr. Lorraine. 

He led the way out of the ruins, through an exquisite 
decorated arch in the north transept, which had been 


78 


Grace Lorraine 


hidden from their view by a pyramid of stones, from which 
tall flesh-coloured snapdragons were springing, like a 
cornfield ready for cutting. 

“ My, how fine ! That’s how I like flowers to grow ! ” 
said Mr. Ebbutt. “ Something to cut at if you want to 
give a festival to a church, or a flower-day at a hospital.” 

“ I agree with you,” said Mr. Lorraine, “ but we have 
the other kind of garden, too — as you see,” he continued, 
passing straight out into the prim monastery garden of 
the great court, without pausing in the colonnade. 

The herb-plots and rosemary-bordered rose-plots, radiat- 
ing from the sculptured well-head of dark red sandstone 
to the dark red sandstone of the colonnades in the Italian 
style were sternly geometrical in their lines, though the 
effect was softened by the richness of the colour and the 
decay of the sandstone. But aesthetic nuances were not 
troubling Mr. Ebbutt. The great colonnade of round 
Renaissance arches, springing from slender columns, all 
in that deep red sandstone, had fascinated him. 

“ Mag — nificent ! ” he said, almost with bated breath. 
“ What do you use it for ? ” 

“ This is the College I spoke of — behind the colonnades 
are twenty little houses made out of forty monks’ houses. 
Each monk had his little house and garden in the monas- 
teries of this Order.” 

“ It was a pity that they weren’t any use,” said Mr. 
Ebbutt. “ They must have had a lovely time. . . . What 
sort of people have you got to take their places ? ” 

“ All gentlefolks, who have lost their money, or not been 
able to make any yet, and all, as far as I could arrange 
it — though one or two others have crept in — people who 
derive the full benefit from such surroundings by spending 
their time in writing, painting, or composing.” 

“ Real authors, artists and such people, or people who 
waste material and try the patience of their friends ? ” 

The unexpected sally made Grace glance up sharply. 

" I have suffered from them,” he said. “ We have a 
saying over there that if your watch tells you that it is 
nine p.m., you’ll know that there are a hundred thousand 
people in America writing pomes — that is, verses — and 


Introducing Mr. Richmond Ebbutt 79 

the amount of prime drawing-paper that was got through 
in a summer holiday before the Kodak idea came along — I 
say it was sinful, never having been in that business 
myself.” 

“You have been in business then, Mr. Ebbutt ? ” 
“Yes, sir, I was in a grocery and furniture business at 
Cin., Ohio, till I scrapped it to find the money to work my 
* Commonsense China * patent.” 

Mr. Lorraine did not pursue the subject. He was one 
of those old-fashioned persons who think it rude to be 
inquisitive. 

“ Might I be so bold as to ask to see one of their 
houses ? ” 

“ Nothing easier — there is one in which the occupant 
who has been nominated has not yet taken up his residence.” 
He led the way to the house which Rufus How was to 
occupy. 

Mr. Ebbutt looked over its three bedrooms and bath- 
room upstairs, and its two sitting-rooms, kitchen and 
pantry downstairs, with deep interest. 

Finally he said, “ The kitchen and pantry don’t seem 
to be fixed up quite equal to the rest ? ” 

“ They’re not for use,” said Grace. She flushed as she 
had flushed in her room at the Manor House. Being 
boarded would be a cruel stab to her pride, though, after 
all, the American shopkeeper, who was almost a gentle- 
man, because he was so frankly vulgar, whom they were 
trying to lure into displacing four centuries of Lorraines 
as Lord of the Manor of Via Pacis, had no idea that she was 
going to be a pensioner herself. 

She explained that the pensioners all took their meals 
together in the Refectory, and that the cleaning and bed- 
making, though without any service or attendance, were 
performed by a staff of men and women servants, paid by 
the College. 

“ Service without servants of their own — why it’s better 
than living in a hotel I They don’t have to think what the 
proper fee for each attention is, or to keep change of every 
size in their pockets ! ” 

“ I’m afraid that the chief drawback of the pensioners,” 


0 Grace Lorraine 

said Grace dryly, “ is that their pockets are not of more 
use/' *fsi 

“ I don’t agree with you,” said her father. “ To live 
in an atmosphere of just enough comfort and con- 
sideration, without one thought of money, is ‘ The Way of 
Peace.’ ” 

“ I’m ’most sure that it is,” said Mr. Ebbutt, “ tho’ I 
guess I won’t try it till it comes along. That Abbot’s 
affair — can we see it now that we have sampled this ? ” 

“ Sampled ” gave Grace fresh horror, but she meekly led 
the way through the echoing colonnade to where an arch- 
way in the north side opened into the small court, made up 
of the Abbot’s Lodging, the Chapter House, the Refectory, 
and the domestic offices. 

Mr. Lorraine rang at the bell of the Lodging — the Master 
had the advantage of a servant to open the door and fetch 
and carry for him, since he could have his meals in private, 
but the servants of the staff tended his house like the 
others. 

“ Is the Master in ? ” asked Mr. Lorraine, when the old 
servant came to the door. 

“Yes, sir,” said the man, showing them into the guest- 
chamber where the Master received people. 

Rufus How came in immediately. He shook hands 
warmly with his old friend and Grace. 

“ How,” said Mr. Lorraine (and Mr. Ebbutt thought he 
was using an Americanism in the wrong place), “ allow me 
to introduce Mr. Ebbutt, who would be interested to see 
your house, if you have no objection.” 

“ None whatever, of course ! How do you do ? ” he 
said, holding out his hand to the American. 

“ I’m not sure — you must excuse me, but I don’t really 
know whether I’m standing on my head or my heels since 
I came to ‘ Yesterday ’ — you will excuse my saying so — 
that’s what I call this place.” 

“ It is The Past — that's the charm of it, when you get to 
my time of life,” said the Master. 

“ Mr. Ebbutt wishes to see the Tudor furniture, How,” 
said the Squire. 

“Ain’t this Toodov ? ” he asked, looking^ round the 


Introducing Mr. Richmond Ebbutt 81 

room. " I thought that the whole of the Abbot’s lodgings 
would be furnished with it.” 

“ It would be a trifle too ascetic for anyone but a monk/’ 
explained Grace, feeling a slight in his words. 

“ Oh, same as the Stooaxt furniture ! You’ll allow we’ve 
made some improvements, then ? ” He always prided 
himself on his ability as a furniture dealer. 

Mr. Ebbutt noticed the shrug of her shoulders, but 
only thought how pretty she was. He was disappointed 
with the hall — its stone walls and floor, divided by six 
feet of plain oak wainscoting, its heavy benches and forms, 
were too severe for his taste. 

“ Seems like it was meant for a school,” he said. 
“ Missy’s room with the meeting-house windows is more to 
my taste.” 

“ Well, we’ll go back there and have some tea,” said 
Grace, resolved at any cost to get him away from Rufus 
How before he made any more rough-hewn remarks. But 
her father remembered that they had not seen the Refec- 
tory or the Chapter House, which lay on each side of the 
vaulted passage by which they had entered the Abbot’s 
Court from the Great Court. 

In the Refectory there were the same medieval banquet- 
ing tables, with tops of two-inch oak, which they had seen 
in the Abbot’s hall. These shone like mirrors, and were 
already laid for dinner. There were no cloths, but the 
cutlery and china were modern, and the forms had been 
replaced by comfortable chairs, made on an antique 
pattern, which did not jar with the surroundings. A place 
was laid for the Master at the head of one of the tables. 
He never took his meals in his house — he wished to be 
master of the servants, not the pensioners. 

The place at the head of the other table had always 
been reserved for Mr. Lorraine, who dined in the Refectory 
frequently. 

Mr. Ebbutt was open-mouthed with admiration, but 
he did not express himself as he expressed himself when 
they crossed the passage into the Chapter House, which 
had been converted into a library and a club-room, a sort 
of drawing-room lined with books, where people — ladies 

6 


82 


Grace Lorraine 


more than men — smoked without asking permission. 
Its plain stone walls had been covered with oak book- 
shelves to where the open woodwork of the roof began, 
to the great advantage of their appearance, in order to take 
the ten thousand volumes with which Mr. Lorraine had 
endowed it, and in winter its stone floor was covered with 
a deep, comforting carpet. Comfort was its keynote. 
It had excellent club furniture instead of drawing-room 
furniture, and a pianola as well as a piano. 

If people wanted to read in silence, they took the books 
away to their own apartments, or to the audit rooms, which 
opened off the Chapter House. It had been the late Mrs. 
Lorraine’s wish that the Chapter House should be a Social 
Hall — an American term, which has no counterpart in 
English. 

The whole idea and the way it was carried out filled Mr. 
Ebbutt’s trans- Atlantic soul with joy. 

“ May I ask,” he said, as he stepped out from the 
Chapter House into the passage, “ whether that tower 
with the great wooden gate under it, is the real entrance 
of this . . . Foundation ? ” 

“ Yes — it’s the great gate of the Monastery, the only 
way into it when it was built, for standing so near the sea, 
it had always to be on its guard against pirates.” 

“ Now, do they use it still ? ” 

“Yes, that wicket in the gate can be opened by turning 
the handle, from six a.m. to ten p.m. — after that you have 
to ring up the porter if you have forgotten your latch-key.” 

“You don’t mean to say — a monastery gate with a 
latchkey ? Not a Yale lock — don’t tell me! ” 

“ Yes, a Yale lock.” 

“ I never ! Don’t the dead monks twizzle in their 
graves ? You’ve got some hereabouts, I guess ? ” 

“ Plenty — there is a monks’ cemetery in the field where 
the pigeon-tower stands, and we reburied twenty sacks 
of bones which had no gravestones when we turned the 
ruins of the church into a rock-garden. The few which 
had stones we reburied under their stones in the ambulatory 
of the cloister.” 

“ I can’t manage that word — it’s too fierce for me, but 


Introducing Mr. Richmond Ebbutt 83 

I know that it must be in the cloister, which sounds quiet. 
May we go out of that gate with the Yale lock and see how 
it looks from the outside ? ” 

“Yes, certainly. It’s worth looking at — I spent a good 
deal in restoring it to its original appearance. We use the 
old monastery granaries and store-rooms on each side of 
the entrance for our stores, which come from London by 
sea. There is enough water at our landing-stage for small 
steamers to come alongside at anything over half-tide.” 

As they were passing out, he explained that the east side 
of the court was taken up with the kitchen and other 
servants’ apartments, and that they still used the monas- 
tery kitchen, with an open range specially adapted for 
the vast cowl chimney. 

Mr. Ebbutt could not find the exact words, so he nodded 
and grunted his increasing approval. But the carefully- 
restored exterior was too plain to capture him so com- 
pletely, until his eye fell on the scroll carved on the tower, 
under an enlargement of the great seal of the Abbey. On 
the scroll were the words : 

“THE WAY OF PEACE.” 

“ I call that motto fine ! ” he said, using the word in the 
American sense. “ Where did you get it ? ” 

“It’s a translation of the name of the Abbey. You 
can see it on the arms — Abbatium De Via Pads .” 

“ Well, Mr. Lorraine,” said the American, “ if, as I 
understand, you have restored a ruined monastery into a 
home for ruined gentlemen and ladies, you have made it a 
way of peace, and done a very fine work.” 

“ I think I have found the way of peace,” said Mr. 
Lorraine enigmatically. 

“You have indeed ! And say, Mr. Lorraine, I’ll take 
the property at your figure.” 


CHAPTER XIV 

HOW MR. LORRAINE BECAME MASTER OF THE FELLOWSHIP 
OF VIA PACIS 

B EFORE Richmond Ebbutt left Via Pacis he begged 
Mr. Lorraine to engage all the servants to remain 
at a ten per cent, rise in their wages. 

“ They ought to have this bit more/' he said. “ It won’t 
be like serving their old master.” 

He also unsuccessfully entreated the Lorraines to remain 
in the house as his guests, for a while, at any rate ; but had 
to be satisfied with their housekeeper, Rachel Bence, a 
Jewess of five-and-forty, who had acted as secretary to 
Mr. Lorraine and companion to Grace, and friend of them 
both, in addition to her housewife’s duties. The post had 
been a well-paid one, and the Squire himself had urged her 
into retaining it ; he was unwilling to see her suffer from 
his speculations. 

The new master assumed possession in a matter of days ; 
since they had only to walk out, and he to walk in, prepara- 
tions amounted to almost nil. A hat-box and a couple of 
trunks sufficed to contain all the cis-Atlantic belongings 
of the man who had paid tens of thousands for the Via 
Pacis estate. 

******* 

As soon as Mr. Ebbutt arrived in his car, the Lorraines 
made their removal into their new home. They were only 
taking their clothes with them, and such things as they 
would have required for travel, and a very few keepsakes. 

84 


How Mr. Lorraine became “ Master ” 85 


It was the more expeditiously done because everyone, 
male and female, who had passed from their employ to 
Mr. Ebbutt’s that day, was anxious to lend a hand. 

At dinner Mr. Lorraine took the Master’s seat in the 
Refectory, but Grace made herself a cup of tea, which 
mingled with her tears, in their apartment. She was too 
sick at heart to eat anything. 


CHAPTER XV 


HOW GRACE LORRAINE TOOK HER POVERTY 
HE Abbot’s Lodging was none the worse for con- 



i taining hardly anything but the old Tudor furniture 
of the hall, and the austere modern medieval furniture 
made to match it in the other rooms. But to Grace it 
was the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel 
the Prophet, after the crowded Manor House, with the 
collections of three centuries. She could barely do justice 
to the appropriateness with which the architect had 
restored and fitted the old house, which went back nearly 
five hundred years. It had been done regardless of cost, 
because it had happened to interest Grace’s dead mother 
more than anything else about the whole foundation. 
Grace had always been deeply interested in the Abbot’s 
Lodging as her mother’s hobby. By all rights her interest 
in her new possession should have anaesthetized her sense 
of loss, but it happened rather that her sense of loss 
sterilized her interest. 

And Mr. Ebbutt almost maddened her by the ignorance 
of the appreciation which he lavished on it. 

His appearance also jarred upon Grace. Though he 
was always very carefully valeted, he wore black clothes 
as consistently as a clergyman. She longed for him to 
have some of Roger’s ease, though she scolded Roger at 
times because he was hardly ever out of flannels, except 
when he was in evening dress. 

She might have had many of the comforts of her old 


86 


How Grace Lorraine took her Poverty 87 

room, for the Abbot’s room, which she now occupied, was 
not inferior in size, and it was not going to be cold in 
the winter, since, like every other part of the monastery, 
it was steam-heated. 

But her father had wished her to bring away nothing but 
her clothes and keepsakes and actual necessities — the rest he 
regarded as included in Mr. Ebbutt’s purchase — so the room 
was very bare, and the fourteenth-century oriel window, 
headed with decorated arches, which looked so exquisite 
from the outside, had very small openings between its 
dividing shafts, and was so high up that she could not see 
out of it at all until she climbed up to the platform between 
the window-seats, to which fortunately there were steps 
up from the floor. This, again, being the only window 
in the room, was a good deal blocked out by the dressing- 
table, which her mother had had designed to go with a 
fourteenth-century room — a most inconvenient affair, 
which outraged history and common sense. And though 
the rectangular portions of the windows had been made 
to open like French windows, by substituting iron frames 
for their own lead settings, they did not give Grace the 
joy which she had found in flinging open the great windows 
of her old room, to look out upon the inlet and the giant 
capes and the Channel. The Abbot’s oriel looked out on 
woods, which were turning sere, like her fortunes. She 
felt as if they would stifle her. 

Her father slept in the little room next to hers, a cell 
once occupied by the Abbot’s Chaplain, which also had a 
door opening into her room. 

For she was frightened of ghosts in that house, and he 
rejoiced in the smallness and discomfort of the room. 

He would have much prefered occupying an ordinary 
monk’s house to being Master, and failing that, he wished 
to be as ascetic as possible in his personal habits, as a kind 
of penance for involving his daughter in his failure. He 
knew how he had stabbed her pride and happiness. 

The discomfort of doing without a maid for the first 
time in her life was a penance to her, and a penance which 
she could have avoided if she would have allowed herself 
to use the services of old Martha, who had been her nurse 


88 


Grace Lorraine 


before she was her maid, and had insisted on accompanying 
them to the Abbot’s Lodging, when a woman servant 
had to be appointed to take the place of the male fossil 
who had waited on Rufus How. Martha Golightly was 
determined that no one else should do the shifts and 
pretences for Grace in her poverty. 

If Grace could only have been like her father, she could 
have eluded most of her unhappiness. He plunged into 
his new life with the zest of a man who had voluntarily 
given up his wealth to an Utopia, and wished to be a 
servant in the courts of his own creation. He tried to 
perform the duties of the Master of Via Pacis as he had 
conceived them, and really enjoyed the routine of the 
members of the College — the meals together, the meeting 
in the Social Hall of an evening, the being shown the 
work on which the various fellows of the order were engaged. 
He had now unlimited time for the walks with them and 
talks with them in their houses which had long been his 
keenest pleasure. Via Pacis, whose name was known all 
over the world to the people who were interested in 
literary and artistic and social movements, had been his 
conception and creation, and under the shade of this noble 
tree he was going to spend the quiet evening of a life which 
had begun in brilliant sunshine. 

But he was in his autumn, and Grace was in her spring, 
and this Utopia had been his dream, while hers had been 
to choose with the greatest care the man who would be 
the ideal companion for her life out of the lovers who 
would be sure to present themselves for a beautiful girl, 
who was the greatest heiress in Devon. 

To do this she had deliberately set a great price upon 
herself. She had been much more simple and friendly 
with the members of the fellowship than with anyone 
else. She had, in a general way, given up her mornings 
to the arts and her afternoons to the County, including 
Roger Wynyard. 

Dressing for lunch seemed to transform her. The girl, 
who, dressed to be inconspicuous, spent her mornings in 
absolute freemasonry with the Fellowship, sketching, or 
reading or listening to compositions, in the afternoon 


How Grace Lorraine took her Poverty 89 

was the heiress, exquisitely turned out, reserved and 
fastidious to the pretentious, delightfully natural with 
her partners and antagonists in games, and apparently 
preoccupied with sport of one kind and another. To 
break the ice with Grace Lorraine the young bloods of 
the County had to be good sportsmen and good at sport, 
but beyond that they needed high qualifications, as they 
soon discovered. If sporting and personal qualifications 
counted, she could have wanted nothing finer than Roger, 
and his modest expectations formed no barrier, because 
her views on marriage were well known, as was his ill- 
success, though neither he nor she would have taken the 
public into their confidence on the subject. 

The young bloods soon discovered that she was willing 
to receive a man as a friend, where she would not even 
contemplate him as a suitor for her hand. Brooke 
Sylvester, who was almost her father’s age, was the only 
man whose offer for marriage she would have considered ; 
and he had no idea of marrying, having observed many 
unhappy instances, and being well satisfied with his own 
manner of life. He had travelled with the Lorraines 
sometimes, and he made every ancient city, which they 
visited, present all its antiquities, all its beauties, all its 
romance, to them, like an open book. He seemed to have 
immortal youth within. The beautiful Grace was his 
for the asking ; but he would never guess it, so, in her 
practical way, she was waiting until a better appeared. 

In the interval there was Roger — Roger, who dominated 
her like a big brother, though his heart was her slave. 
It was Roger who went with her to parties, took what 
crumbs she chose to vouchsafe to him as a partner, was 
snubbed by her, maybe, not very mercifully, and in the 
end bade her come home at his discretion. She some- 
times pleaded for an extension, but the decision always 
remained with him. 

In the car he was just like a brother. She could lean 
against him if she was tired, or show him any little affec- 
tion she chose. Nothing could make him try to kiss her 
when he was her chaperon. 

It inspired her into being perversely affectionate, but 


90 Grace Lorraine 

she appreciated his attitude, and it made her really fond 
of him. 

And he, how well he was rewarded for his self-restraint ! 
It often made her tempted to tempt him. As the wise 
Roman said, everything was his so long as he did not 
take it. 

Roger had more of her society than any other man. 
He was not one of those who enjoyed it because they 
were content to be friends, not lovers. He was a lover 
who would not take nay. But he was a lover whose 
declarations did not disturb the even tenor of their lives. 
He took his refusals like a “No, thank you/’ at tea, and 
put the proposal down like a plate of bread and butter. 

And Grace did not fear Roger’s proposals ; they only 
made her impatient. She never, for instance, forwent 
playing Roger against a troublesome admirer because it 
might lead to a proposal from the former. 

Lord Dartmoor was a pertinacious admirer ; he could 
not imagine any woman rejecting a good-looking young 
man, with nothing aginst him, whose possessions stretched 
half across Devon, but he understood better when Grace 
showed an open preference for Roger. Roger Wynyard 
had been prefered before him at Oxford by men ; was it 
unnatural that their example should be followed by a 
woman ? Of the two she would rather go through life 
with Roger, concerning whom she knew the worst that 
would have to be known. 

******* 

And now Grace Lorraine, whose chief business in life 
it had been to winnow the aspirants for her hand, was 
an heiress no longer, but daughter of a pensioner at Via 
Pacis, with a few pounds a year of her own, which had 
been saved from the wreck of her American grandfather’s 
fortune. This she had allowed to accumulate in the 
bank through which it was paid to her, since she had had 
such a large allowance lying to her credit in her father’s 
bank. 

Her attitude was not one of repining, but of anger with 
Fate, which had played her such a dog’s trick. 


How Grace Lorraine took her Poverty 91 

Not that she regretted not having made use of her 
opportunities for contracting a wealthy and distinguished 
marriage. No one whom she liked well enough had 
asked her, and, poor as she now was, she would rather 
be what she was than linked for life to any of them. It 
was only that the whole thing seemed so unnecessary, 
that her father should have lost his money by specu- 
lations, when he had begun with so much more than he 
wanted that he gave away half of it to charity. He had 
not told her that he had speculated so as to be able to 
give more away to charity. 

Grace Lorraine was cut off all round — cut off from the 
County by the loss of her father’s fortune ; cut off from 
her old friends of the Fellowship because she felt shy of 
meeting them under the altered circumstances, though 
she might have reflected that since she had always been 
as one of themselves in the days of her prosperity, she 
had nothing to alter in the day of adversity. 

They on their part were hampered by delicacy. They 
had always felt her fraternizing to be the outcome of 
noblesse oblige ; they had always felt her to be the heiress 
acting a part ; and now that she had fallen, they still 
waited for her to make the advances. The only friends 
who seemed to come forward were the Wynyards, Mr. 
Sylvester, Hestia Myrtle, and some of those who had been 
compelled to retire from the Fellowship for success, and 
still lived in the neighbourhood. 

The Count had flown back to London. He loathed 
the country and could not endure it one day longer when 
there was no heiress in the wind. 

Roger was her great standby. He had the sense to be 
the brother and not the lover while she was so forlorn. 
Day after day he had been urging her to come and have 
a game of tennis, and to-day he was more urgent than 
ever. 

“ I can’t — -I haven't the heart,” she said. 

“ It is exactly the thing to give you heart. A girl who 
has been accustomed to games all her life can’t suddenly 
leave them off without damaging her health and her 
spirits.” 


92 Grace Lorraine 

“ And it would be such bad taste, I think, now that 
I’m a pensioner.” 

“ I don’t see it.” 

“ Well, I do.” 

“ Then why did your father make a special set of courts 
for the Fellowship, if it isn’t right for the members to 
play ? ” 

She hesitated. 

“ Bernafay plays a lot, and Hestia plays a good bit, 
though she can’t play for nuts ; so why shouldn’t the 
Master’s daughter ? ” 

“Yes, Hestia plays, and she’s a busy woman, but I 
don’t think she plays very much, and it's generally with 
the Count — an affaire pour rire.” 

“ A how much ? ” 

Grace took no notice of his interruption, but went on 
to ask, “ Does she play when she comes to the Rectory 
for tea ? ” 

“ She isn’t allowed to come. The mater is afraid of 
* Eliza coming to stay ’ as a stepmother-in-law, or some- 
thing.” 

“ I wouldn’t mind playing at the Rectory sometimes,” 
said Grace, pursuing her train of thought without heeding 
Roger’s indiscretions. “ It wouldn’t attract anybody’s 
notice there.” 

“ Come along this very minute ! ” he cried, slipping his 
arm through hers. 

“Wait until I’ve fetched my tennis shoes, man ! ” 

“ Right ho ! ” he said, and started trying to mimic 
the faces of the pilgrims carved round the chimney cowl 
in the fifteenth century. Roger was a good mimic, and 
had a mobile, clean-shaven face. 

Grace was some time in returning, and when she did 
come, he had the attitude and the face of the pilgrim so 
perfectly, that she burst into a really happy natural 
laugh. The curtain cord twisted round his waist, like 
the pilgrim’s girdle, and the slouch into which he had 
knocked his Monte Carlo felt, to resemble the pilgrim’s 
hat, completed the illusion. 

“ Oh, Roger, you are a dear silly thing ! ” criedJSrace. 


How Grace Lorraine took her Poverty 93 

He noticed that she had put on one of her prettiest tennis 
kits, and otherwise taken care of her appearance, but like 
a wise man said nothing. 

Jg- His mother noticed it too when they got to the Rectory, 
and were tautening the net. 

The tingling of the blood caused by the strong exercise 
brought back to Grace her old desire for games, and she 
came to the Rectory nearly every afternoon ; and Roger, 
whether from his own happy-go-lucky nature, or from 
the definite desire to please her, was not the lover, but 
gave himself up to the enjoyment of playing games with 
her on the old frank footing, which always ended in such 
a cordial walk back to the Abbot’s Lodging. 

That was in the afternoon ; in the morning he used to 
have a bad half-hour when the only post of the day had 
arrived, bringing him no word from Rugby or Oxford 
or the War Office about his commission. It was such a 
humiliation to him to be hanging about home, playing 
games, when practically every soldier we had was across 
the seas, and every able-bodied man at home ought to 
be learning to drill and shoot in case of invasion. He 
could shoot, though he had never shot for Rugby or 
Oxford in his O.T.C. days, because he was always playing 
cricket in the summer term ; and he had been a sergeant, 
and knew a certain amount of drill. If the Government 
could not give him a commission right away, why could 
they not attach him to the local Territorials, and let him 
help to lick the South Devon yokels into shape ? 

He often talked to Grace about it, when he went to 
fetch her down to tennis, so that the beloved need not 
carry her racquet and her shoes for herself. 

Sometimes he talked of enlisting. But she protested 
vehemently against that. It would be such a sinful 
waste of national material to have Roger, a man born to 
lead and inspire as a Regimental officer, quick to see a 
crisis and meet it, sure of affection and obedience, vamped 
into a Tommy Atkins. 

To think of such a man being an automaton under the 
orders of a crass sergeant, for there were such, or a toy 
officer, for there were such, was intolerable. No, he 


94 Grace Lorraine 

must not enlist ,* he must just consume his soul in 
patience, 

However despondent his mood might be on their walk, 
the clouds always cleared away when they settled down 
to their tennis. Singles they were obliged to play, since 
there was no one else of their class in the Fellowship. 


CHAPTER XVI 


HOW MR. RICHMOND EBBUTT WENT IN SEARCH OF THE 
MIDDLE AGES 

I T was curious how soon, in a remote village like Sea- 
combe, people settled down to their ordinary lives 
in the midst of the greatest war which has ever been 
waged. No one who had anything to do with the Fellow- 
ship enlisted, except Mr. Pennylegion, on whom the future 
had just dawned so brightly. Roger Wynyard, it was 
true, had at once answered the appeal to those who had 
served in the various Officers’ Training Corps, and Lord 
Dartmoor had taken a commission in the Guards, though 
he was sent back by the Medical Board soon after he 
got to France as being totally unfit to stand the hardships. 

Hardly anyone had gone from the village — there were 
few young enough to go, and the farmers and their men 
considered themselves indispensable in their own calling, 
even when they were doing milkmaids’ work. There were 
no gentry in the village, except the Rector, and the artists, 
authors and musicians who had been Fellows of the Via 
Pacis Foundation, or had settled in the neighbourhood for 
congenial society, in such wonderful climate and scenery. 

But just when Grace was beginning to feel normal again, 
the blow fell. Roger suddenly received his orders to join 
the O.T.C. camp in Kingsburgh Park, near London, and she 
was thrown back on her own resources. Once more she 
sat for hours at the piano, occasionally striking a few notes. 
She would not enter the Social Hall, or take her meals at 
the Refectory. She was out to nearly all callers. She 

95 


96 


Grace Lorraine 


went nowhere but to the Rectory, and there very seldom, 
for Roger’s ghost stood in her path. Mr. Sylvester was 
away in Italy conducting secret negotiations for our 
Government. 

Mr. Ebbutt tried to rouse her from her torpor, when he 
met her at the Rectory, or when her father brought him to 
the Abbot’s Lodging. But it was in vain that he told her 
that the whole of the Manor House was at her disposal, 
that she was to treat things as if they were her own. She 
could not be persuaded to go to the house ; she looked the 
other way if she was in any room of the monastery which 
commanded a view of it. 

It was an unfortunate thing that she and Mr. Ebbutt 
should affect each other in such opposite ways. To him 
she was the most beautiful and “lovely” thing which he 
had ever seen. He determined to buy that house, whatever 
its drawbacks might be, because it had been hers, and was 
so full of her possessions and her personality. When he 
learned that she and her father would go no further off than 
the monastery after they had vacated the Manor House, 
he could hardly conceal his impatience to close the bargain. 
He was a singularly modest man. While he had been 
patiently compiling his millions at Cincinnati he had 
hardly been thrown into the path of elegant women at all. 
He had occupied himself night and day with planning the 
over-running of the United States and Canada with his 
" commonsense china.” 

When his great task was completed, he sold out to a joint- 
stock company, and turned his back on America. He 
wished to have a new life on earth, as well as in heaven. 
Above all, since everything had been new and hideous in 
his environment at Cincinnati, he meant to buy himself 
a house in Nuremberg or Oxford, or some such place, and 
try to picture himself back in the Middle Ages. What the 
Middle Ages exactly were, he did not know ; he had no 
notion when they began or ended ; he liked the expression 
“ the Middle Ages.” It was comforting to a middle-aged 
man that there was so much beauty and romance attached 
to the expression, and he liked the words connected with 
it, such as “ troubadour ” and ” tournament,” and 


In Search of the Middle Ages 97 

" knight-errant.” He had the ideas of a knight-errant 
himself, though he did not know it. 

Nuremberg was soon ruled out — he could speak no 
language except English, and Oxford seemed to offer no 
opportunities to a millionaire, since none of the Colleges, 
or even Blenheim Palace, was for sale, and there was no 
other house in the place with a rent of two hundred a year. 

So he went to the great estate-agencies, and no less than 
four of them told him that he might get the exact thing 
he wanted in the Via Pacis estate in South Devon. 

These gentlemen were not guilty of intentional mis- 
representation when they described the house as medieval. 
Not having taken their Firsts in History at Oxford, they 
did not know any more than he did that the illustrious 
monarch, King James the First of England, and the 
Sixth of Scotland, in whose reign the house was built 
came to the throne a century later than the Middle Ag^s 
And, at any rate, it was laid out on a medieval ruin, and 
looked out on one of the finest ancient monasteries in 
England. There was a splendid view of the great court and 
its colonnade and garden from the upper windows of the 
Manor House. 

To Mr. Ebbutt the house was quite medieval enough, if 
he could buy it with all its contents undisturbed, as the 
advertisement stated ; and that he was buying it from the 
descendant of the man to whom the estate was granted, 
and the man who had built the house, added greatly to its 
value in his eyes. 

Mr. Ebbutt, with the elements of knight-errantry so 
strong in him, would have been deeply gratified if the 
Lorraines had gone on living in the house. It was amply 
large enough for all of them, and, as the descendants of 
Henry de Lorraine, they were the living counterparts of 
the original furniture. 

It grieved him, more than he could say, that they would 
have nothing to do with the idea, that they would not 
accept the smallest favour, that they insisted on walking 
out with almost nothing but their clothes and their old 
letters. Being, however, a man who had triumphed ever 
many difficulties by patience and humility, he hoped to 

7 


98 


Grace Lorraine 


win his way to their sympathies. Grace’s haughty courtesy, 
as she had accompanied him and her father about the 
house when he came to look over it, had fascinated him. 
He hoped some day to see friendship come into those 
proud eyes. 

When he entered into possession, Mr. Ebbutt’s hopes 
were raised for a little, because Mr. Lorraine considered it 
part of his bargain to show him every detail about the 
house and garden, and the Squire, in his relief at finding 
that the new purchaser was neither blatant nor purse- 
proud nor vulgar in anything but his appearance and his 
education, soon made a friend of him. But Mr. Ebbutt’s 
hopes were dashed when he found that access to Grace was 
rendered not easier, but more difficult thereby. 

She was horrified by her father having made a friend of 
a common American manufacturer, who had bought their 
immemorial possessions, and determined to offer a most 
strenuous opposition to any attempt which he made to 
draw her into the acquaintance. 

When Mr. Lorraine had shown the American everything 
about the property which he had sold, he asked him if he 
would care to come and take coffee that evening in the 
Social Hall, so as to make the acquaintance of the Fellows 
of Via Pads. 

“ I should like it fine ! I want to get to know everyone 
of them, as will allow me, as my personal friends, and I 
hope that they will make themselves at home up at the 
house, same as they did in your time.” 

He did not see Grace there when he arrived. He did 
not, however, expect to, although his eyes scanned every 
corner of the hall in quest of her. 

Yet he did not know that he was altogether sorry, 
because he meant to talk sufficiently to make the acquaint- 
ance of every person to whom he was introduced, and if 
she were in the room, he would reproach himself afterwards 
for lost opportunities. 

Mr. Lorraine, with his old-fashioned courtesy, was 
plunged into a fever of anxiety. He feared that two-thirds 
of the Fellowship would be insulted beyond forgiveness 
by Mr. Ebbutt’s peculiar humour. But he was entirely 


99 


In Search of the Middle Ages 

mistaken. Though he had been living with these 
Bohemians for twenty-four years, he had utterly failed 
to understand their standpoint, which was to welcome any- 
one who added to the gaiety of their lives. In Mr. Ebbutt 
they recognized a natural humorist. That they had in a 
kind of way been the victims of his humour, did not trouble 
them in the least. They hailed the introduction of such a 
humorist into the rather limited society of Via Pacis with 
something like enthusiasm. He was welcome to be witty 
at the expense of anything he pleased, if only he would be 
witty. Nor did the formality of his appearance, or his 
hopeless want of education, grate on them. These made 
everything he said funny, whether it was really funny or 
not. 

The assemblage broke up with many manifestations of 
cordiality, and most of them invited him to come and see 
the results of their work, in some shape or another. 

It took him a week of afternoon calls to accomplish this. 

He invited them all to come to the Manor House every 
Sunday afternoon, with tea in the house or garden, as the 
weather might dictate. 

Mr. Ebbutt had considerable qualms about asking Mr. 
Lorraine to come, and the old Squire had a very poignant 
feeling against going, but duty with him was always 
paramount, and he thought that if his presence did no 
good, his absence might do harm. 

Grace not only would not go herself, but was furious 
with her father for going. She might have raised a more 
active opposition but for one thing : her father had talked 
of asking the Fellowship if they would object to having 
their afternoon teas served in the great hall of the Abbot’s 
Lodging, instead of in the refectory, on Sunday afternoons, 
with a view to bringing the Master more in touch with the 
Fellows than the ex-Master, Rufus How, had been. At 
this function she could hardly avoid being present, so she 
was glad to see the scheme transfered, as it were, to the 
Manor House. 

And it counted a great deal with her that Mr. Sylvester, 
when he returned from Italy, at once admitted Mr. Ebbutt 
to his inner circle. For easy-going as Mr. Sylvester was 

7 * 


100 


Grace Lorraine 


about acquaintanceship, he was chary of wasting his time 
upon those who were not worth it. As a wealthy old 
bachelor, he had no one but himself to consult, and though 
his sympathies were broad his judgment was fastidious. 

It was not until the following week that Mr. Ebbutt 
made his first appearance at the tea-table in the Abbot’s 
Lodging. Grace was present, and had determined to be 
duly amiable. But her good intentions were frustrated 
by the oppressive shyness which Mr. Ebbutt felt in the 
presence of the woman for whom he had conceived such a 
passionate admiration. It was not love ; such a thing 
did not enter his contemplation as applied to Grace 
— Dante did not put Beatrice on a loftier pedestal. And 
the pity of it was that she was so unworthy of it. 

She was a very beautiful girl ; she was very elegant ; 
she had great feminine charm on the rare occasions when 
she chose to exert it, but her charm generally lay in a pro- 
voking fastidiousness. And there, apart from her in- 
tellectual equipment and her accomplishments, which were 
considerable, her good qualities ended, in the opinion of 
many. She did not know herself whether she was a nice 
woman or not ; she often did not know whether she wanted 
to be nice or not on a particular occasion. She would let 
a man of sufficient power decide for her. A man who 
abased himself before her, like Mr. Ebbutt, awoke the 
wrong chords in her : he made her inclined to be 
rebellious, ungracious and ungrateful. If she found the 
right master, she might be all that a Prince could desire, 
but until the Fairy Prince came, the good in her would 
sleep like the beauty in the wood. 

It offended her that the home of her ancestors should 
have been bought by a tradesman, who never wore sporting 
clothes except for fishing, and then did not have them at 
all right. 

She hated also that the Squire of Via Pacis should be a 
man with an extraordinary accent, who tortured the King’s 
English. Her ancestors had been men of distinction. 
Many Lorraines in the line of succession had sat for their 
County in Parliament. 

Still, she smiled as she handed him his tea, and because 


101 


In Search of the Middle Ages 

he was in love with the image he had created of her, he, the 
five times millionaire, the lord of the whole countryside, 
was grateful for the smile of condescension bestowed upon 
him by the daughter of the ruined squire, a pensioner 
living in an almshouse. 

But though she smiled, she took no part in the con- 
versation ; she left that to her father. 

Mr. Ebbutt felt so oppressed that he did not venture on 
any of the homely scintillating truths which generally 
adorned his conversation, and which would have won him 
her ear more quickly than anything else, for the beautiful 
Grace could appreciate wit. 

He said little ; he merely asked questions about the old 
house which drew long answers from Mr. Lorraine. 
Saying little counted for some merit in her eyes, though k 
did not advance him a snail’s march. 


CHAPTER XVII 


WHAT MR. EBBUTT THOUGHT OF HIS NEIGHBOURS, AND HIS 
NEIGHBOURS THOUGHT OF HIM 

S the autumn advanced, in spite of his want of 



J~\ progress in the direction which touched him most, 
Mr. Ebbutt felt surer and surer that he had spent his 
money well. He had a beautiful house in a beautiful 
climate, and he had made the acquaintance of twenty or 
thirty very interesting families, who few of them seemed 
to remember that he was the dollar-bag who had bought 
their founder’s estates when the crash came. 

After the first formal round of calls, bringing them 
flowers or grapes had given him an excuse for looking in 
occasionally. This gradually gave way to more intimate 
reasons, when he had confided to the Rector that, since he 
was connected with the Fellowship in a way, he wished to 
buy paintings of the locality, and many copies of any- 
thing which had been written about the locality, to send to 
his business friends in America. 

The pictures he hung in a building he purchased in the 
town for the purpose, which had been in turn a Non- 
conformist chapel and a cinema theatre. He intended in 
the following season to organize an exhibition of pictures 
by painters of the Via Pacis school, if he could get Angelo 
Fairfax, the R.A., and the other successful painters who 
had once belonged to the Fellowship, to send pictures. 

The books about the locality were so few that he soon 
found himself buying books upon any subjects which 
had been written at Via Pacis. These books were invari- 
ably ordered through the Seacombe stationer, and Mr. 


102 


Mr. Ebbutt and his Neighbours 103 

Ebbutt presented a copy of every book which had been 
written at Via Pacis to the little library which the stationer 
conducted, on condition that they should be kept in a 
separate bookcase, called the Via Pacis Library, and that 
every book which was lost should be replaced. This was 
to make the glories of Via Pacis known to the visitors 
who came to Seacombe for the bathing and the scenery 
in the summer, and for its mildness in the winter. 

As he interested himself so much in the work of Via 
Pacis, the unassuming financier soon came to know the 
workers well, and was treated as if he were a member of 
the Fellowship. 

The members went as freely to see him as he came 
to see them, but he spent the happiest part of his days 
in the monastery, where he could escape from the atten- 
tions of his servants, whose number and attentiveness 
oppressed him, after the greater simplicity of America. 
He had kept on all Mr. Lorraine's servants, except those 
who wished to enlist, and for these he arranged to keep 
their places open, and give them full wages while they 
were away. He did not fill their places, and was thankful 
for their absence, though that was neither here nor there. 

But it was at the Rectory that he was most intimate 
of all. There was no one there who was personally to be 
benefited by the bounties of Maecenas, any more than 
Mr. Sylvester, so no shyness of any sort came in, and 
Mr. Ebbutt had been distinctly impressed by all three 
members of the family. 

A new type to him was the well-off Rector, a great 
sportsman, still as active as a young man, though he was 
seventy, and with almost the position of a Squire in the 
County, who yet was so attentive to his duties in his 
parish, and to the remarkable Fellowship of which he 
was the resident trustee. The best testimonial to him, 
in Mr. Ebbutt’ s eyes, was that a Nonconformist chapel 
should have become a cinema theatre. 

With Roger, until he had been called up to the O.T.C. 
camp, he was immensely impressed. He had watched 
him chafing at the delay in getting his commission. He 
had noted that he was obviously looked-up-to by every 


104 


Grace Lorraine 


young aristocrat in that part of Devon for his greatness 
in sport, and looked the equal of any of them in breeding. 
Mr. Ebbutt, with his American training, was astonished 
to observe that Roger, as far as he could make out, because 
he enjoyed a sufficient income to go about, had never 
thought of anything but sport until the war broke out. 
And he was still more astonished to observe that this 
doing nothing obviously enhanced his position, instead 
of stamping him as a wastrel, as it would have in America. 

But Lady Cynthia Wynyard, the Rector’s widowed 
daughter-in-law and Roger’s mother, was his special 
friend. She saw all the goodness that there was in the 
shy, plain American, and could understand the great 
ability behind it, which had helped him to make his 
fortune. She forced him to come out of his shell when 
he was with her. 

The society of this well- turned-out woman of the world, 
who retained so much of the elegance and good looks of 
her youth, gave him deep pleasure, because she made 
him be at ease with her, which was exactly the weak 
point in his relations with the beautiful woman who 
filled his thoughts. Why was Grace so determined to 
keep him at arm’s length ? 

And Mr. Wynyard and Roger had been at as much 
pains to put him at his ease when they came to know 
the real man. But much as he was impressed with the 
young English sporting type, Mr. Ebbutt could not have 
helped being astonished if he had grasped how much of 
the cordiality with which he was received by the other 
great landowners in South Devon was due to Roger’s 
simple dictum : “ He’s a good sportsman,” and the brief 
explanation which might follow. Roger could assure 
them that he was a sportsman, for accepting the new 
Squire’s invitation to show him what sport there was on 
the estate, he had noted the fineness of the tackle with 
which Mr. Ebbutt landed a good basket of heavy salmon- 
peel, though he was no shot. Mr. Ebbutt had, in fact, 
never done any shooting to speak of, but he had rented 
a salmon-fishing on the Metapedia a good many years 
before he turned his eyes to Europe. “ And the shooting 


Mr. Ebbutt and his Neighbours 105 

does not matter, you know," said Roger, “ because there’ll 
be no shooting of game this year — except for the pot." 

The founder of Ebbutt’ s, whose “ Common-sense 
china ’’ was used in almost every city and town in the 
United States and Canada (which Mr. Ebbutt called 
Canady), envied Roger more than anyone he had ever 
met — Roger, who would never make a competency in 
any profession — for the perfect ease and modesty with 
which he accepted popularity and admiration. It was a 
delight to him to be in the company of such a happy 
and natural person. But his American clear-sightedness 
told him that it was really a feminine gift in one who 
was, otherwise, so essentially manly, and strong and 
courageous. 

Mr. Ebbutt got over his shyness sufficiently to call him 
Roger, when his friend flatly refused to answer to the “ Mr. 
Roger " used to distinguish him from his grandfather. 
He often dined at the Rectory, and they often dined with 
him. Until he went away to the O.T.C., Roger shot the 
game for both tables, and he and the Squire fished together. 

It was a great blow to Mr. Ebbutt when Roger went 
to the O.T.C. For in all the broad lands of Via Pacis, 
the two objects which gave him the keenest pleasure were 
Grace and Roger, the embodiments of adorable youth 
and of the aristocratic beauty, the perfect health and 
high physical training of the country gentry of England, 
the adventurous stock who have filled the waste places 
of the earth with Republics, Commonwealths, Unions 
and Dominions. Raleigh himself, the forefather of 
America, came from South Devon, from a Manor House 
but a few miles east of his, and the class from which he 
and this boy and girl sprang had paved the way in the 
wildernesses of three continents with their money and 
their energy, and often with their blood. When there 
were no wars to fight, the slaying of dangerous wild beasts 
in tropical lands, the handling of danger in sports for 
those who could not leave their homes, supplied them 
with their tests for courage and endurance. Courage and 
endurance were their gods. The spirit of the Race was 
in their charge. They kept its altars alight from one 


106 


Grace Lorraine 


war to another, while Kings and Governments, heedless 
whether the fire went out or not, maintained an empty 
ritual with political and diplomatic forms. 

Mr. Ebbutt had yet to hear about the great Public- 
Schools of England, where the creed of the country gentle- 
man is handed on from one generation of boys to another, 
as the code of chivalry. It would have given him food for 
long reflection to hear that the masters took a minor part 
in its propagation, though they enjoyed no respect from 
the boys unless they had been brought up in it, and, if 
they were worth their salt, accepted its decisions as 
reverently as the boys did. 

And he would have been even more astonished at the 
omissions of the code (the code of a class born to rule, 
not to work for its living), which has not a word to say 
for learning, and hates industriousness like the very devil. 

He had seen both aspects in Roger Wynyard. Roger 
was a preux chevalier , but he was only a drone in the 
community in times of peace, and his explanation of 
what he meant by a smug had horrified Mr. Ebbutt. 

Yet Roger, a born soldier, so eager to fight for his 
country, so easy and courteous in his independence, and 
the aloof Grace, who would be so exquisitely beautiful if 
she could only be tender, had an extraordinary fascination 
for him, and Roger had gone, and Grace was implacable. 

Even at the Rectory they did not seem to miss Roger 
as much as he did. Roger’s mother, who was just his 
counterpart, was in reality devoted to him, but she did 
not expect that a boy like Roger would remain in a Devon- 
shire village all his life ; she always looked for the time 
when he would start 'on the great adventure, whatever 
form it took, and, secretly, she had chafed at his delaying 
so long in beginning this serious business of life. 

Mr. Lorraine had been at the bottom of it, because he 
had secretly nurtured the wish that Roger should marry 
Grace, and stand in his shoes when he had gone. In that 
case, Roger’s duty would have kept him at Via Pacis, 
looking after the estate, and nursing the division as a 
future candidate for Parliament. That Roger should 
devote himself to sport as exclusively as he devoted 


Mr. Ebbutt and his Neighbours 107 

himself to his garden and his hobby, did not trouble Mr. 
Lorraine. He thought that every man was entitled to 
his tastes, and he could trust Roger to behave in the 
handsomest way to his pensioners. 

He did not wish Roger to go away because he thought 
that Grace might be snapped up in his absence, though 
few men would have a chance with him while he was 
there. 

He had, as a matter of fact, ever since Roger had left 
Oxford, taken him almost as much into his confidence as 
his agent about every question in the management of 
the estate, with this in view, though he had not breathed 
it to Roger or anyone else — even Roger’s mother. He 
knew Grace’s perversity too well to let it pass his lips. 

Roger's mother was an heiress in her way — the boy’s 
income came through her. She was a daughter of one of 
the Devonshire Earls. Roger’s father, who had died 
when he was a child, of a fever contracted while out tiger 
shooting, was just such another as his son. He was a 
soldier, who had been on the Viceroy's staff for his cricket. 
Roger did not go into the Army, because he feared that 
there would never be another war, and he believed that 
he would get into the Oxford Eleven. And his mother, 
knowing the pitfalls in the paths of smart soldiers, had 
been glad to acquiesce in his decision, though she dis 
approved entirely when, on leaving Oxford, he decided to 
go to the Bar, for which she knew that he possessed neither 
the brains nor the industry. 

“You would make a much better clergyman, dear,” 
she said. “You would have influence, and you would 
exercise it for the good, and you know how unfit you are 
for that.” 

“ Don’t be frightened, Mater — I won't try to be a devil- 
dodger ! ” 

Lady Cynthia thought of her father-in-law, and laughed 
till it was plain where Roger derived that hearty, 
contagious laugh of his. There was nothing of the dodger 
about Harvey Wynyard. Character in different phases 
was equally the feature of all three inmates of that cheerful 
household. 


108 


Grace Lorraine 


Now Fate had solved her problem. Roger was to be 
a soldier like his father — but a soldier when soldiering 
was a reality. To the amazement of Richmond Ebbutt, 
the thought comforted her. 

“ I don't hold with war at all,” he said, “ and if I had 
a son I should do all I could to keep him away from it. 
The workers of the world — employers as well as employees 
— should join together and put a stop to it. But I applaud 
your courage, Lady Cynthia Wynyard.” 

“ We are Devons, Mr. Ebbutt, and we have heard 
Drake’s drums ! ” 

“ I know it, Lady Cynthia Wynyard, I know it ! The 
whole British «irystocracy have heard Drake’s drums. 
We Americans sometimes talk considerable about the 
shame of so much of the lands in the old country being 
held by people whose ancestors won them by the sword, 
but I guess we’ll never talk that way again, now that 
we’ve seen the way in which their descendants heard the 
call. I hear that more than fifty heirs of Peers have 
been killed. It seems to me that most every gentleman 
in England who is not too old or too young wants to 
fight, and a big few who are. There are times, begging 
Mr. Tennyson’s pardon, when simple faith like old 
Haldane’s, though they did make him a Lord for it, does 
not come in so handy as Norman blood.” 

“ I’m glad you think so, Mr. Ebbutt. We’re very 
proud of our Norman blood in Devon — I was bom a 
Baskerville.” 

“ I love these young thoroughbreds like your boy and 
Miss Grace, Lady Wynyard.” Mr. Ebbutt saw no 
difference between Lady Wynyard and Lady Cynthia 
Wynyard. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


GRACE LORRAINE’S FIRST STEP TO FORTUNE 

I N one respect the stars in their courses seemed to be 
fighting for Richmond Ebbutt. Trezennor, the 
Seacombe bookseller, had been accustomed to sell the 
paintings of local scenery by the artists of the Via Pacis 
Fellowship to visitors. Mr. Ebbutt, when he came, had 
bought out the entire stock. This suggested a new avenue 
of profit — fresh paintings of local pictures could be 
unearthed. 

One day, when Grace came in to change a novel — the 
library of the Social Hall did not stoop below novels by 
standard authors — it reminded Trezennor that he had no 
pictures by her in the lot which he had sold to Mr. Ebbutt, 
though she painted “ very pretty ” water-colour sketches. 
He knew this because he had framed them for her from 
time to time. 

He did not mention Mr. Ebbutt’s name to her, because 
he thought she would raise the price at once if he did, 
but he said that if she wished to sell her drawings now, 
he was willing to buy as many sketches as she had ready 
at ten shillings apiece. 

Grace, overjoyed at the prospect of making money by 
her own handiwork, brought him all she had, and received 
the money for them. Trezennor at once sent in word to 
Mr. Ebbutt that he had a number of new water-colour 
sketches of exceptional merit, which he could have for 
a couple of guineas apiece if he took the lot. The 
messenger who brought the note received orders to go 
and fetch them. 


110 


Grace Lorraine 


“ Who are they by ? ” asked the millionaire. 

The boy had not been instructed to make a secret of 
it, and replied, “ Miss Lorraine, sir — her name is on them, 
I think.” 

“ Oh, yes — G.L.” Mr. Ebbutt examined them with 
immense interest because they were by her. He with- 
held his decision until he had finished the examination, 
not because he had any hesitation about taking them, but 
lest he should give the boy (and through him his 
master) the idea that he made purchases without dis- 
crimination. 

He had them all framed like a few which hung in Grace’s 
loggia sitting-room, and when they were ready, hung 
them in the belvedere room over the porch, which had 
windows on three sides, and contained no pictures on 
account of the exquisite beauty of the panelling, by some 
pupil of Grinling Gibbons, whose work was hardly inferior 
to the master’s. Since the reception to the members of 
the Fellowship when they came in on Sunday afternoons 
was always confined to the great suite on the ground 
floor, it was long before anyone in the monastery knew 
how he had outraged the seventeenth-century panelling and 
honoured Grace. 

The one person who might have conveyed the informa- 
tion, his Jewish housekeeper, Rachel Bence, felt that 
to do so would be disloyal to her rough diamond of an 
employer, who had won her sincere esteem. For there 
were many things in his behaviour which showed her 
how much he was in love with Grace, and no one knew 
better than she did how it might defeat a plan of his, 
which she would like to materialize, if Grace heard about 
the pictures. 

Jane Falcon, the hardy lady-artist who had given up 
a life of travel and interest to accept a Via Pacis pension 
for the sake of her blind sister, used to supplement her 
pension by doing paintings of the gigantic rocks at the 
mouth of the inlet for her old patrons. She was a slow 
worker, very sound in her technique, and despised the 
rapid sketching of water-colourists. 

Grace was not aware of this. She only knew that 


Grace Lorraine’s First Step to Fortune 111 

she was constantly out painting sea-pieces, and had the 
reputation of being very taciturn. 

It was this reputation, perhaps, which made Grace 
confide to her, “ I have sold all my sketches, Miss Falcon.” 

“ Indeed ! How much did you get for them ? ” 

“ Ten shillings each.” 

The uncompromising Jane thought that it was very 
good pay, and would have said so if she had had words 
to waste, but she confined herself to : 

“ Who bought them ? ” 

“ Trezennor, the bookseller.” 

Jane thought that Trezennor 's head had been turned 
by success, but that Grace might just as well profit by it. 
She divided the world into artists, and conspirators against 
artists, who were therefore enemies. Her patrons were 
soft-hearted exceptions. 

Finally she said, “You had better paint some more 
ten-shillings’ -worths. I can show you good subjects. 
Will you come with me to-morrow ? Start at ten from 
the porter’s lodge, and take your lunch.” 

Grace was punctual ; they spoke little on their walk 
to the Giant’s Head, but when they reached it, Jane spent 
half an hour in showing her the finest points in the cliffs, 
and grew eloquent in her grim way. 

Grace thanked her, and determined to sketch them all, 
as she had time. She did not work rapidly ; her sketches 
were not free ; they showed fidelity and some skill, but 
they had none of the inspiration of Tim Whibley’s. They 
must, she thought, be good subjects for Trezennor. 

She also contracted a liking for the society of Jane 
Falcon, who asked no questions and, indeed, initiated 
no conversations. 

Trezennor bought the sketches and asked for more. 

Painting gave her something to do, and took her out 
of herself. She put her best work into them. She saw 
little of Jane Falcon, who remained working in one spot, 
being engaged on a considerable picture. 


CHAPTER XIX 

CONCERNING HESTIA MYRTLE AND GRACE LORRAINE 

H ESTIA MYRTLE adored Roger Wynyard. She had 
seen not only the attractions which everyone who 
met him saw, the courage, the splendid strength and 
activity, the chivalry, the bonhomie, the child-like 
openness — she knew him as even Grace did not know 
him, though he was in love with Grace, and not with 
her, for he was in awe of Grace, and he was not in awe 
of her. 

It was her own fault that he had made love to her, 
but to a woman of her attractiveness and brains and 
longings, Via Pacis afforded only a narrow vista. She 
had comfort and freedom from care, but she had very 
little beyond her pension of fifty pounds a year to spend 
on dress to set off her prettiness, and paying the visits 
to friends in London, which gave her the opportunity of 
buying her clothes and, to use her expression, were the 
only things that saved her from becoming a vegetable. 
When she went to London her money melted from her 
pocket. She had to rush about, not only to buy her 
clothes and see the sights, but to restore her tone after 
her long vegetation, like the man who went up to 
London to clear his system with a round of theatres after 
Lent. She did not care for the country ; she did not 
care for country pursuits ; she did not feel the need of 
country air and sights and sounds. She was a town-bird, 
who began to be thoroughly awake when she took her 
shopping walk before lunch, and liked to have one social 

112 


Hestia Myrtle and Grace Lorraine 113 

engagement after another for the rest of the day, in- 
cluding, if possible, a theatre or a concert. She liked a 
theatre best, though her metier was music. 

For weeks after she had returned to Via Pacis, she 
used to live again those feverish days in London. They 
were life ; the days at Via Pacis were a lotus-eater’s 
slumber, but for one thing — the advent of Roger. 

She first met Roger at tennis at the Manor House. 
She did not play tennis well herself, but she liked any 
kind of party. She generally, from a deck-chair, pre- 
sided at the tea-table, to which people came for tea, 
and other refreshments, when they had finished a set. 
She munched chocolates, which were always an adjunct 
of the Manor House teas, and talked to the exhausted 
heroes and heroines. If she grew bored, she went into 
the drawing-room and played — she loved Grace’s Erard. 
The resting tennis-players often followed her into the 
drawing-room. 

Not so Roger ; he was a school-boy about tea — he 
drank cup after cup, and he made cakes and chocolates 
disappear like cartridges into a machine-gun. 

The day on which he first met Hestia, the other people 
who had been playing with him in the set left at its con- 
clusion. Grace called out a sort of introduction as she 
was taking up her position to serve. It was not necessary : 
Roger’s were not the kind of advances which any resonable 
person would repel, least of all Hestia. She saw in him 
the mixture of modesty and frankness which belongs to 
children ; she read the charm of his disposition in his 
face, like an open book. And she had seen his smashing 
volleys. Hestia was no great judge of tennis, but she 
knew enough to appreciate their deadliness and brilliance. 

So he took his seat beside her with something of a halo 
crowning his modesty, and his readiness to be pleased 
did the rest. 

“ How do you do, Miss Myrtle ? ” he said, raising 
himself in the deck-chair, since he had no cap on, when 
Grace “ served ” the introduction to them. 

“ Oh, I’m very well,” she replied, " though I think 
I shall be ill to-morrow if I eat any more chocolates.” 

8 


114 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I can easily stop that,” he said, reaching over to the 
table to take the chocolate-box on his knee. 

She grew alarmed at the way in which they were dis- 
appearing. “ Stop ! stop ! ” she cried. “ I . . . I . . . 
I . . . want to be ill ! ” 

“ Oh, if you don’t want me to finish them, I won’t,” 
he said, “ but I’m not going to let you endanger your 
health. I’ll take them to Collins and ask him to lock 
them up till this time to-morrow ” — Collins was the 
butler. Roger marched into the house with them gravely, 
and returned without them. “ Now thank me for saving 
your life,” he said. 

“ I’m sure I shall do nothing of the kind — why shouldn’t 
I make myself ill if I want to ? ” She pretended to 
sob. 

“ Because I’ve taken you in hand — I’m your trainer. 
You know what a trainer is ? ” 

“ A trainer ? Do I ? ” 

“ Of course you do ! If you’re going in for a prize- 
fight, he’s the man who prepares you for it.” 

“ But I never should.” 

“ That doesn’t matter — he makes you observe the 
straight and narrow way in the matter of health.” 

She looked at him with the glint of mischief in her 
eyes, and said " Rats ! ” 

The mention of that familiar quadruped made them 
friends for life. 

He teased her as he would have teased a flapper, and 
Hestia was getting on for thirty. She did not resent it ; 
she liked it. It recalled her days at the Royal College 
of Music, when she found herself the centre of cheap 
student gaiety in Chelsea. She had spent her whole 
capital on that course at the Royal College, and living 
expenses, and a brief period of happiness afterwards, and 
when it came to an end, she had earned a hard and pre- 
carious existence as a pianist at a cinema, and when her 
cinema hours were over, at late Bohemian parties, where 
she ought to have been in the thick of the fun instead 
of chained to a stool. She had been composing all the 
time, but it was only once in a blue moon that she sold a 


Hestia Myrtle and Grace Lorraine 115 

composition, because no music-publisher will buy light 
opera music from an unknown composer, and no theatrical 
manager will use it ; they are slaves to names. 

Therefore Hestia was only too thankful to be admitted 
as a pensioner at Via Pacis, where she had the leisure, 
which she found with such difficulty in London, for her 
composing, and could fill up the reserves of rest which 
she had been draining for years. 

When Chelsea and all its fun were as far a cry as Loch 
Awe, it was a godsend to her to come upon Roger, just 
down from Oxford, a knightly person, full of monkey- 
tricks. 

On that footing they might have stayed, but Hestia’s 
nature craved for more. Actors are common in Chelsea, 
and where actors congregate, there are plenty of Christian 
names and kisses flying about. The lovely and high- 
spirited Hestia had not escaped their attentions. She 
had escaped with only one of their pitiful romances 
because she had her wits about her, but she had drunk 
deeply enough from the Circeian cup to desire the affection 
of a man she admired, and Roger was of too affectionate 
a nature not to respond. 

Had Grace allowed herself to become engaged to him, 
he would not have lifted an eyelash in any other direction. 
But Grace would not be engaged to him, and refused to 
believe that she could ever contemplate him as a husband, 
and though she did not know that Hestia let him kiss 
her, was glad that he should be attached to Hestia, because 
it gave her some respite from his proposals of marriage. 
If he had become engaged to Hestia, she would have been 
honestly glad. She did not want Roger for a husband 
herself ; she wanted him for a friend. The desire for a 
lover had not yet been awakened in her ; her test for a 
husband was, how would she like him to take the place 
of her father ? She would, of course, like him to be an 
Apollo in youth and good looks and fastidious habits, 
but he would have to be a man of as many interests as 
Mr. Sylvester. 

Roger was so chivalrous about placing women on 
pedestals that nothing short of downright provocation 

8 * 


116 


Grace Lorraine 


would elicit advances from him. Hestia was not dis- 
couraged. She had let men kiss her because they wanted- 
to. This man should do it because she wanted him to. 

The first opportunity came when they had both been 
dining at the Manor House, and Grace had asked him 
to see Hestia home. The moon was shining, and she 
said, “ The night is too nice to go straight from one hot 
room to another. Have you got to be in by any particular 
time, Master Wynyard ? ” 

“Oh, no ! The grandpater leaves our front-door un- 
locked all night. Seacombe’s not out of the Golden 
Age yet.” 

“ Let’s go and listen to the nightingales by the Holy 
Well. I want to write a nightingale song.” 

“ You can’t go there in your best evening slippers — 
the grass will be sopping with dew.” 

“I’ll take them off. I love walking barefoot on the 
wet grass — are you afraid of the wet ? ” 

“ I ? — no, I’ve got boots on. The road up from the 
Rectory is too stony for pumps.” 

At the stile which let the Lorraines out from the garden 
to the wood, she sat down and drew off her slippers and 
stockings. Poor as she was, she always wore silk stockings 
and costly and delightful slippers. 

She gave Roger a look which said, “ Will you carry 
them for me ? ” 

He had wanted to offer, but felt bashful. Finally he 
did offer, and they started into the wood. 

It was brilliantly lighted by the moon ; there was a 
path to the spring, but there was grass as soft as velvet 
on each side of it, and she loved the kiss of the dew on 
her white feet — they were of that ivory white which few 
but the women of the South attain, and the ankles which 
she displayed as she caught up her skirts from the damp 
were beautifully turned and slender. 

The Holy Well was a pool, covered over with a vaulted 
chamber, and fed by a spring whose waters issued from 
an arched holy- water stoup in the wall. 

Beside the well-house was one of the broad seats, with 
a low back and arms, of an old Italian pattern, which 


Hestia Myrtle and Grace Lorraine 117 

Mr. Lorraine had had copied from the Borghese Gardens 
for his grounds. 

“ Let’s sit down here and listen for the nightingales," 
she said. 

“ Won’t you catch cold with those pretty feet of yours 
all bare and wet ? " 

This was a highly poetical speech for Roger, and she 
noticed that he said “ pretty," but she answered him quite 
plainly, “ These things never affect me — I’m as hardy 
as a savage." 

She guessed the effect of this boast on an athletic man 
like Roger. 

“ By Jove ! " he said. “ You are a ripper ! " 

“ Am I ? " she said, looking at him with mischief in 
her eyes. 

The moonlight was shining so brilliantly that he could 
see it as plainly as if it had been midday. 

“ Hush ! " she said. “ Now listen.” 

After they had been listening for a little while, the 
sonata of the woods began. She leaned towards him, 
and put her hand on his shoulder to warn him that it 
had begun, and kept it there to chain him to silence. 

Roger listened without a word to the whole sonata, 
from its first warblings to the triumphant organings of 
its climax, but his arm stole round her waist, and she 
yielded to it. He drew her closer to him and listened 
on. He could listen like this for a long time, though 
a few minutes satisfied his curiosity as to nightingales. 

But when he looked at Hestia her face was transfigured. 
She was drinking the beauty of that song to the bottom 
of the spring, so that its inspiration might well up in the 
nightingale song which she was writing. The inspiration 
had made her face more beautiful than he had ever seen 
it before. He gazed into it almost reverently. 

At last the song stopped, and the rapture on her face 
broke into a smile. 

It was a short-lived smile, for she felt his lips laid on 
hers, and made no attempt to defend herself. It was 
the climax of all others to the intoxication of the last 
half-hour. 


118 


Grace Lorraine 


It was she who was the lover. One moment she wished 
that he could have put some fire into his light and playful 
kisses ; the next she liked him all the better because he 
did not. 

In truth, Roger’s heart was Grace’s, and he could not 
simulate love for anyone else. Kissing such as he gave was 
only a form of ragging — or friendship — which was it ? 
It cemented a friendship, in any case. It bound him to 
Hestia as he was bound to no other woman except Grace. 
Nor was he forgetful of Hestia’s interests, for though he 
would have liked to have sat there half that moonlit 
summer night, he rose after they had listened to one more 
nightingale sonata, and escorted her back through the 
Manor House stile, where he dried those beautiful feet and 
ankles with his handkerchief, with a fine delicacy and 
tenderness, but without a word or a glance of admiration 
(for which again she blessed and cursed him), and busied 
himself with hunting a glow-worm while she drew on her 
stockings and slippers. And he went on hunting his glow- 
worm until she called “ Roger ” — she had never addressed 
him by his Christian name before. 

Then he came back to her, and took her through that 
church rock-garden, where the stocks on the walls were 
awake, to her little house in the great court, which was 
full of the incense of roses, with the same matter-of-factness 
as if they had gone straight from the Manor House door 
to her own. 

“ Come in for a few moments, won’t you ? ” said Hestia, 
quite reckless as to how the proceeding might undo all 
Roger’s elaborate precautions on her behalf. 

“ No, thanks. I don’t think I’d better,” he replied, 
just as he would have said it if he had brought her straight 
from the Manor House. He was, moreover, vexed with 
himself for having yielded to the temptation, and he did 
not wish any comment on his going into Hestia’s house sc 
late to reach Grace at a moment when he could not have 
swept it away frankly. 

Hestia tried to put what she felt into her handshake 
when he said good-bye. 

From that day forward to the day when she had saved 


Hestia Myrtle and Grace Lorraine 119 

his life by giving the alarm to the lifeboat-men, their friend- 
ship had increased and ripened. Hestia, with her raven 
hair and glowing cheeks, was a lovely woman, and the 
mouth which he had been privileged to kiss was a rose with 
warm human petals. And if her figure was not as tall 
and beautifully-carried as her rival's, it was dainty and full 
of soft grace, and she had the fine art of dressing well on 
a little. 

Having now taught Roger that he might kiss her, she 
saw to it that he did not lack opportunity. 

To some men, if they had been as much in love with 
Grace as Roger was, it would have been impossible to 
go on kissing Hestia. 

Roger had no such feeling. He had plenty of nice girl- 
cousins on his mother’s side — My Lady this and My Lady 
that — and he had not left off kissing them when they left 
off being children. Therefore he was accustomed to being 
on affectionate terms with nice women. In fact, since 
Grace was so intractable, it was natural for him to associate 
affection with friendship rather than with love. 

But though he only gave Hestia affection, she gave him 
love. Roger, big, strong, handsome fearless, careless, 
good-natured, was the type of man she had always been 
prepared to worship, and when once she had been petted 
and caressed by him the conquest was complete. She 
was ardently in love with him. She knew that she could 
not have his heart, but it was a great consolation to her 
to have his caresses, his playful love-making, which came 
to so little more than ragging. 

And being in love, by the instinct which human beings 
share with animals, made her so lovely when she was in the 
society of the man whose lightest touch thrilled her, that 
if he had not been protected by the robur et aes triplex of 
his adoration for Grace, he could not have remained 
insensible. 

Hestia was a good sportswoman. She had not meant 
anything serious when she determined to make Roger kiss 
her. It is not every kiss which has serious consequences 
in Chelsea. Hestia had been kissed by many men without 
losing her heart to any of them. The old phrase, kissing 


120 


Grace Lorraine 


goes by favour, as she interpreted it, meant that a kiss 
willingly given is a great mark of friendship from a woman, 
though it may only be a dissipation to a man. 

Now that she knew that his heart was Grace’s — he had 
told her himself one day, in a fit of self-reproach — she was 
so sorry for him at Grace’s not smiling on his suit that she 
longed to win Grace for him, so dear was his happiness 
to her. 

” Grace,” she began, one day not long after Roger had 
gone away to his training, “ I know why you’re so un- 
happy — I’m sure that you refused him before he went, and 
that now you’re devoured with regret.” 

Grace was so long in answering that Hestia said, “ Don’t 
be offended — I’m so fond of both of you that I should like 
to bring you together.” 

“ I wish it was that — it would be so easy to repair. I 
should only have to wire my change of mind to Roger, and 
all would be right. The trouble goes deeper than that, 
Hestia. I’m eating my heart out with regret for the 
narrowness of the life which stretches before me. Even 
when I thought that I was going to be very rich all my life, 
I was depressed by the thought ot the future, for I had to 
marry to give heirs to the estate, being the last of my race, 
and there was not a man who had ever shown the slightest 
sign of wanting to marry me who would not, as Roger would 
say, have ‘ bored me stiff ' within a year. And the matter 
is worse than ever now. As a great heiress I had many 
offers of marriage, and had the chance to pick and choose. 
Now, when I want some rich man to marry me and take 
me away from the scenes which are so painful to me, 
nobody wants to marry me, except the faithful Roger.” 

“ And Mr. Ebbutt.” 

“ Mr. Ebbutt ! Even more impossible ! And I am sure 
that nothing is farther from his mind.” 

“ Why won’t you marry Roger ? ” 

“ Think how unhappy we should be ! Even if they kept 
Roger on in the Army, his income and his pay together 
would never be enough to keep a house on, if we had any 
family, while his mother and grandfather are alive. I 
should be slaving and saving all my life, entirely dependent 


Hestia Myrtle and Grace Lorraine 121 

on Roger's companionship, because we could not afford 
to go anywhere or do anything beyond garrison teas and 
tennis parties — and I might not have time for much even 
of them, having so much to do in the house. All my leisure 
time would hardly be enough to give Roger a little of my 
society.” 

" You’d find that this would make up for everything,” 
said Hestia, judging by herself. 

" But what time should I have for thought ? — I’ve 
always thought for an hour or two a day ever since I left 
school.” 

“ Thought ! — what about, Grace ? ” 

“ I think about a lot of things.” 

“ Do you mean Plato and evolution and all that sort 
of stuff ? ” 

“ Yes, all that sort of stuff — and Art and History and 
Antiquities, all the things you think about when you are 
travelling — reading generally.” 

“ Roger wouldn’t want to waste time on that sort of 
thing, certainly — he’d find it more relief to go to a cinema.” 

“ And that and having babies and working and econo- 
mizing are to make up life for me ? ” 

“ I'd welcome it.” 

“I’d rather die an old maid in an almshouse as I am now. 
We, at any rate, have time to rest, and time to think, and 
refined surroundings. I have learnt the beauty of my 
father's scheme by sad experience.” 

“ And I have had an awful lot of pleasure out of it. 
But I sometimes think that it's only a licence to be selfish 
— that we are as lazy as the monks were. You can't pre- 
tend that it is better for me to be composing songs that 
won’t sell, and therefore never seeing life, than it would be 
for me to bear children by a strong, healthy father, for 
the nation which is losing so many of its best every day ! ” 

“ There are plenty of potential mothers, Hestia, who 
desire nothing better.” 

“ But you and I, who have alert brains, as well as 
healthier and better nourished bodies than a large per- 
centage of them, ought to produce a higher type of children 
for the State, men better qualified to be inventors, and the 


122 


Grace Lorraine 


age of inventors will begin when the war is over, because 
the struggle of military inventions has been so intense up 
in the air and down in the sea and in our arsenals/’ 

" I daresay you’re right, Hestia, but I can’t do it. I 
belong to the old order, which will fight to the last ditch 
rather than lose the dignities which it has inherited. I 
cannot tell you what the crash caused by my father’s 
speculations means to me. I would rather have died than 
live to see it. I would commit suicide now if it was not a 
sin, and for the blow which it would mean to my father.” 

“ He bears the blow like a man. Why don’t you follow 
his example ? ” 

“ Like a man ! Do you call his smiling accommodation 
of himself to the change from Squire to almshouse-person 
bearing it like a man ? I think that he’s positively happier 
just pottering round as he does now. It’s a terrible lapse 
of dignity, terrible ! ” 

“Well, I can’t see it. There are only two things in 
life, duty and happiness. It is not everybody who can 
want to do her duty — that’s a special gift of Providence 
which I don’t enjoy. But we can all want to be happy, 
and happiness is the greatest thing of all. Other people’s 
happiness as well as your own. Now, your father has 
always wanted to do his duty, and always thought of the 
happiness of others — for instance, of all of us — so you ought 
not to grudge him his own happiness, when he has suffered 
one of the greatest blows which any man could suffer.” 

“ I know I ought not, but I can’t help it. I throw back 
to my ancestors of the age when fighting & Voutrance was 
more highly esteemed than resignation.” 

“ And all this time there is Roger. Won’t you make 
up your mind to give him happiness, if you can’t have it 
yourself ? ” 

“ What right have you to interfere with my private 
business ? How do you know that I care for him at 
ah? ” 

“You can’t help caring for him — he’s such a ripping 
man. Besides, I wasn’t thinking of your caring for him, I 
was thinking of how much he cares for you. And every- 
body in Seacombe-cum-Via Pacis, knows that.” 


Hestia Myrtle and Grace Lorraine 123 

“ It is very impertinent of them,” said Grace, not 
knowing what else to say. “ Besides,” she continued, as 
an idea struck her, “ if I did marry him, I should be so 
unhappy that I should warp even his happy nature.” 

" How could you be unhappy with him ? ” 

“ Because,” said Grace, with considerable intuition, “ I 
should have to be working nearly all day, and he would 
expect me to spend my hard-earned leisure in hanging round 
him.” 

Hestia knew how true this was, and reflected with bitter 
irony how gladly she would do it if she had the chance. 

“ Oh, well, she said, “ I don’t think you realize that 
it’s war time.” 

“ Unfortunately, I have only too good a reason for 
realizing it.” 


CHAPTER XX 


CONCERNING AN OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS AND A 
MUSICAL COMEDY 

I NSTEAD of equipping the O.T.C. to which Roger was 
attached, in Kingsburgh Park, with a Commandant 
and staff calculated to get the best out of a number of high- 
spirited young fellows from the Public-Schools, and with 
deft handling to develop the highest esprit de corps out of 
men inspired by the Public-School code, they had a red-tape 
Commandant, as stiff as his legs, and drill-sergeants who 
were fitter to train East-end hooligans than gentlemen. 
Bullies without imagination, their real interest in their 
work was to try and break the spirit of every gallant 
gentleman who came under them by metaphorically rubbing 
his nose in all the drudgery of the Tommies’ course, which 
was the first part of the training. 

Any sergeant in the London Scottish would have 
made a better Commandant for the Kingsburgh O.T.C. 
than Colonel Herring did. 

To Roger, good natured as he was, and willing to go 
through any hardships to serve his country, the life of the 
O.T.C. was especially revolting. The sleeping on planks 
or on the ground was not the burden of the flesh to him 
which it is to so many men of the upper classes ; nor was 
washing in the open, almost stripped, for he was naturally 
hardy as well as a good sleeper. The mixed society did not 
annoy his easy-going, philosophical temperament — and 
some very queer civilians had been selected, by goodness 
knows whom, as suitable for training into officers. 

, It naturally gave him no pleasure every morning to roll 

124 


An O.T.C. and a Musical Comedy 125 

up the bottom of his tent in a particular way, bring out his 
bedding for airing in a particular way, lay out his kit for 
inspection in a particular way, and so on, down to the 
polishing of the buttons, but he meant to do it cheerfully, 
smartly, and really efficiently, to show that he could and 
would do it as well as he had done other things to which he 
had directed his energy, such as cricket. 

Yet Sergeant Lepper always addressed him while he was 
doing it as if he was the most obstinate, insubordinate, 
churlish man, and the biggest fool, in existence. The 
sergeant never opened his mouth without oaths and threats. 

It was always, “ Wynyard, damn you, look alive ! 
None of yer skulking with me ! If you don’t bustle up, 
and stir your adjective carcase a bit more, I’ll . . .” 

Everything Roger did was found fault with. That it 
was done with absolute injustice signified not at all. 

There was nothing to find fault with. Roger, having 
been a sergeant in the O.T.C. , both at school and at Oxford, 
knew most things about the work before he joined the 
Kingsburgh Park Camp, and his sportsman’s eye made 
him particularly neat in making the end of his bedding 
dress exactly with the line, and keeping the bedding 
itself exactly at right angles with the line. It was quite 
a picture of neatness and good dressing. But when he 
had done it, Lepper would come along and kick it up, and 
tell him to do it again, with every other word an expletive, 
just because he hated Roger for being a man of such 
superior breeding, from whom he was unable to extort an 
answer back. 

The food rations, which were liberal, were spoilt by 
bad cooking, but no objection was made to such of the 
victims, as could afford it, having their dinner at a hotel 
in the town, and Lepper was unable to worry Roger into 
any protest which could be made the pretext for confine- 
ment to camp for insubordination. 

Although they were so near London, they had to be 
in at an hour which prevented their going to a place of 
amusement on any night except Saturday, or Sunday 
when they were all shut. This was galling, but Roger 
saw the sense of it, because in time of war, when boys 


126 


Grace Lorraine 


are training as hard as they can to become officers, it 
does them no good to be hanging about London at night. 
But the effect of it was tiresome, because it reduced one’s 
amusement after a hard day’s work to dinner and billiards 
at the Kingsburgh hotels, or seeing drivelling American 
humour at the Kingsburgh cinemas. 

This did not at first press hardly on Roger, because 
billiards was one of his games, and playing a few hundred 
up after dinner, before an audience of appreciative fellow 
O.T.C.s, gave him both pleasure and renown. 

But a new factor was to enter into the situation. A 
future was beginning to dawn on Hestia, through Dal 
Dryander, who owned and constantly occupied the largest 
bungalow in Seacombe. He had in his not very distant 
youth been a member of the Fellowship of Via Pacis, and 
had been so enamoured of the boating and bathing and 
fishing facilities, that when he became prosperous and 
had to give up his pension, he always came back to Sea- 
combe for his holidays, and as soon as he could afford it, 
built a bungalow there, to which he was constantly adding. 
His prosperity had been unbroken. 

When penniless and hardly more than a boy, his 
brilliance as an organist won him his pension at Via Pacis, 
and a small extra stipend for playing the harmonium in 
a chapel. He practised his playing diligently, and tried 
his hand at all sorts of musical compositions. A rich 
musical agent, whose patronage of Seacombe as a watering- 
place had been the means of introducing young Dryander 
to Mr. Lorraine’s notice, had a plain daughter of about 
Dal’s age, who was thrown into constant contact with 
him. He was the kind of man who has a great attraction 
for plain women — a good-looking fellow, with a high 
colour and curly red hair, and already, though so young, 
a picturesque red Bernard beard. 

Max Rothenstein had no objection to him as a son- 
in-law. He was a good judge of men, and saw that Dal 
had the right qualities for a successful musical agent, 
with a good knowledge of music and singing, so he gave 
his consent to the marriage on condition that Dal would 
leave Via Pacis and come into his office, which had a 


An O.T.C. and a Musical Comedy 127 

musical-comedy and music-hall clientele — the placing of 
music being quite as important a branch of it as the 
placing of singers, on account of the exclusive songs of 
music-hall “stars.” 

Young Dryander soon found his opportunity. While 
still organist at Via Pacis, he had perceived what admirable 
popular songs could be made by transposing hymns, and 
had tried his hand at it. There he had no means of dis- 
posing of the songs, and no great knowledge of popularity. 
But now, when so much of his business lay in selling 
songs to music-halls, he knew exactly what sort of thing 
was most saleable, and devoted his leisure to re-coining 
hymns. Then he began to use his power as an agent. He 
pushed the ” stars ” who sang his songs ; his songs became 
what the public wanted ; their prices went up by leaps 
and bounds, and he soon began to grow rich. 

He never relaxed. As one of the most popular doggerel- 
music-writers of the day, who could put his own vulgar 
words to the songs, and was therefore independent of the 
writers of popular words, he could now exercise great 
influence on the “ stars ” themselves, and carry them with 
him. 

When he heard that a well-known music-hall proprietor 
was going to turn one of London’s great exhibition halls 
into the largest music-palace in the country, he went to 
him and made it perfectly clear to him that the only way 
for him to command the chief singing talent and most 
popular music for it was to make Dal Dryander manager. 
Yankee Smith had no objection to a Dryander combina- 
tion. He had a far higher opinion of combinations than 
he had of Art. And from that time forward Dal Dryander’s 
three businesses of music-hall manager, musical agent 
and composer, formed a Pactolus with their mingled 
streams. 

Dal liked Hestia Myrtle, if the truth was known, much 
better than he liked his wife, but, so far, his admiration 
had been of an unobjectionable and hospitable kind. 
She had the run of his house and was the favourite of 
his wife and children. He himself had not shown his 
hand. He had not seen what line to take up, though, 


128 


Grace Lorraine 


as Hestia was a clever composer who could not find any 
purchaser for her productions, a line of influence was 
in front of his eyes, if he had not been too selfish and 
self-satisfied to perceive it, and this though he often 
heard the songs in the musical comedy which she had 
written when she was singing them to his children, and 
liked them well enough to hum them. It never struck 
him that anything good could come out of Galilee. In 
his business he had got to the stage when he accepted 
songs not for their music, but for names of favourite 
music-hall composers. 

Lately he had achieved a fresh distinction which he 
had long coveted. He had received a commission to 
write a musical-comedy, but as he had been constantly 
writing songs for the various revues produced at his 
music-hall, he found that he had run dry of melodies 
sufficient for such an extended work. He was not the 
man to give up a contract, apart from the conviction 
which he had formed, that the public was bound to tire 
of revues sooner or later, whereas musical-comedies 
would go on always. In his difficulty, he thought of 
Hestia. Her musical-comedy, he knew, had some 
excellent and catching melodies in it, and though he had 
never tried to help her for her own sake, while he was 
aware how she needed the money, his mind turned to 
her readily enough when he was himself in a hole, and 
he patted himself on the back for his desire to help her. 

He did not offer to attach her name to the production, 
even in combination with his. He told her, in fact, that 
it would prevent his getting the contract. It might 
have done so, but he did not make the inquiry. He told 
her in advance, and as she made no objection, the work 
was published as Dal Dryander’s. 

In one matter he over-reached himself. He had not 
sufficient confidence in the music, not being his own, to 
induce him to offer her a sum of money for it, down. He 
suggested instead that she should take a share in the 
royalties. By “ share ” she understood him to mean 
half, and she told Mr. Skewen, Mr. Lorraine’s lawyer, so. 

Mr. Skewen, who was attracted to her because she was 


An O.T.C. and a Musical Comedy 129 

the only brilliant woman from Bohemia whom he had 
met, and he craved for some foil in his Puritan life, said, 
“ I’ll draw up the contract for you, free of charge.” 

“ Oh, no,” she said. “ Mr. Dryander might not like 
it. It’ll be all right — I shall have to leave it to him.” 

When he protested that if things were left in this way, 
they generally ended in the deaths of friendships, she 
said, “ Well, you talk to Mr. Dryander about it.” 

The composer was not very pleased about the arrange- 
ment being the subject of a legal agreement, and did not 
like it at all when the lawyer said that he understood 
that the royalties were to be divided equally. But when 
he found that the cat was out of the bag, and that Mr. 
Skewen was aware that “The War- workers ” was in reality 
Hestia Myrtle’s music entirely, and that all he was going 
to do was to give it his name and adapt it to stage require- 
ments, he saw that no objection could be sustained against 
the suggestion. 

" Mr. Dryander, you could not offer her less — especially 
since she is a personal friend of yours 1 ” 

So the agreement was drawn for half royalties, and 
Hestia was almost bewildered to discover that since Mr. 
Dryander had stipulated for four hundred pounds on 
account of royalties — which he had not mentioned to 
her — and since half the royalties were to be hers, her 
lawyer had received a cheque for two hundred pounds. 
It was a mere chance that Mr. Skewen was sufficiently 
interested in theatrical business to know that advances 
were usual in these contracts, but, knowing it, he insisted 
on including it in the agreement. 

Being in possession of more money than she had ever 
had before, Hestia at once went up to London, and estab- 
lished herself in charming rooms, not in London itself, 
but at Kingsburgh, which is only half an hour by car 
from Charing Cross. 

There was method in her madness. Kingsburgh was 
just far enough off to secure her from her Chelsea friends, 
with whom shillings were sufficiently scarce to make the 
railway fare an obstacle, and she did not want them 
running-in on her at every hour of the day and night. At 

9 


130 


Grace Lorraine 


the same time, it was within easy reach of the theatre, 
where the rehearsals were going on, and not too far for 
more important and busier people to motor down to see her. 

But the main attraction was, of course, Roger. She 
knew how early he had to be back at night, from a letter 
which he had written to her when he first went there — 
the only one he had managed, so far — another reason 
for wanting to see him. 

It was one of the best moves she had ever made. 
Private Wynyard, 1250, Officers' Training Corps, Kings- 
burgh Camp, S.W., was just in the mood to be cheered 
by the news that one of his greatest friends had come to 
stay in Kingsburgh itself, so that he could slip in when- 
ever he was off duty, and had nothing to do. 

“Whenever you are off duty and have nothing to 
do ” — he read it out to himself two or three times. It 
sounded too good to be true. But “ Yours, Hestia,” 
was certainly in her handwriting, and he promptly sent 
her a wire from the camp post-office that he would be 
round at such a time to take her to dinner, somewhere 
in the town. 

In the interval, Hestia was preparing herself for a 
shock. It wculd be dreadful to see Roger, who always 
wore such rip pir g tweeds and flannels, cut by the best 
Oxford tailor, and so exactly right, as she now pictured 
him. For the vision which rose before her was of a 
Tommy, in shoddy and ill-fitting khaki, stained by the 
arduous duties he had been called upon to perform, in 
service boots which looked as if they had cost about ten 
shillings a pair, and other horrors. 

The figure which arrived looked so like an officer’s that 
she thought that her eyes were deceiving her. His own 
Oxford tailor had made his uniform, of officers’ cloth, 
with his usual success in fit, and the boots, though they 
were in imitation of a Tommy’s pattern, must have cost 
him at least fifty shillings at his own bootmaker’s. Imitat- 
ing the smartness of an officer is no crime in the O.T.C. 
Even the “ Leper ” did not dare to go beyond swearing 
about it. Roger, looking, as it were, the show Tommy 
of the British Army, was a fascinating creature. 


An O.T.C. and a Musical Comedy 131 

Hestia lost hei heart more hopelessly than ever. 

It tickled her wayward fancy to go and dine at a 
Kingsburgh Hotel with a Tommy, to be seen walking 
about the streets with a Tommy, and to go to a cinema 
afterwards with a Tommy. She hoped that some of her 
friends saw her. It would have tickled her a good deal, 
even if Roger's appearance had been as she feared, but, 
with such a very special Tommy, it made her feel quite 
brilliant. 

When the Tommy ordered champagne — he remembered 
Hestia's fancy — the waiter, now Swiss, stared. Yes, he 
thought, Roger’s clothes showed him to be something 
special. Living at Kingsburgh, he thought he might be 
one of the Tecks. He had not kept a very particular 
account of the family. He was, no doubt, setting an 
example. It was not for a Swiss, whose nationality was 
open to doubt, to worry himself about such matters. 

Roger was adorably attentive during dinner. It was 
such a treat to him, as he said, to have something to 
“ spread " himself over. They prolonged the dinner to 
such a late hour that they had only been in the cinema 
a few minutes when he discovered that he must fly out 
at that second, and run all the way to the station, where 
he would be sure of getting a taxi, and taxi to the camp, 
bribing the man to go beyond the speed limit, if he intended 
to get in by the hour laid down. He would have been 
disposed to sit where he was, and chance whatever punish- 
ment he might get, if there had been any chance, but he 
knew that his enemies would take the opportunity to 
confine him to camp for a week, and he was not going tc 
run the risk of being deprived of the society of Hestia 
for seven mortal days, when he had only just recovered it. 
Hestia was not the kind of woman to resent his sudden 
departure. For two pins she would have run with him 
to the station. She made him promise to dine at her 
lodgings on the next night, and she intended to make 
him do it every next night, except Saturday and Sunday. 
It meant such a saving of time. 

Roger’s taxi bowled into the camp just in time ; there 
was not above a minute or two to spare. But on the 

9* 


182 


Grace Lorraine 


way he made an enemy more virulent, for he passed the 
red-faced Colonel Herring, whose nickname in the Camp 
was “The Bloater/’ walking, very hot and exhausted, 
and did not offer him a lift, knowing that it would just 
make the difference to his being in time or not. He felt 
that he could not trust such a rag-bag of red-tape to protect 
him from consequences if obliging him made him late. 

Roger dined with Hestia on the intervening nights 
till Saturday, when, being able to sleep out of camp, he 
arranged to give her dinner in town, and take her to 
the Gaiety afterwards. He engaged a room at the Louis 
Philippe Hotel , so as to be as near her as possible. He 
was going to breakfast with her in her rooms. 

She tried hard to make him take her to one of the 
Italian restaurants in Soho, where it had been her ambition 
in her student days in Chelsea to have one dinner without 
economizing. But Roger was firm — nothing short of the 
Savoy would satisfy him. And he explained to her, with 
some reasonableness, that it was not very easy for a 
Tommy, with his meals found in camp, to spend three 
hundred a year. So she suffered gladly. 

In her student days she could never dream of the 
Savoy ; she merely thought that she would rather go 
there than go to heaven. 

They had not seated themselves in their stalls at the 
Gaiety very long when a gorgeous young Staff officer — 
an altogether superb person — came in. He was alone, 
and it was not the first time that he had seen that piece 
at the Gaiety. He came in at the further end of their 
row, and stalked along, without looking to the right or 
left, in unconscious grandeur. He stopped next to where 
Roger was sitting ; Roger had deposited a pound box of 
chocolates on his seat. He was so absorbed in Hestia 
that he did not notice that the seat belonged to the Staff 
officer until he was waiting to occupy it. He rose to 
salute and apologize, and removed the chocolates. 

When he spoke, the effect on the illustrious person was 
electrical. 

“ W hy, Roger, old man ! ” he said. “ To think of 
meeting you here in this absurd kit ! It is an O.T.C., I 


An O.T.C. and a Musical Comedy 188 

see — that’s not quite so bad. But why didn’t you work 
a commission direct ? ” 

" Tried to and couldn’t, sir.” 

“ How bally rotten ! But don't call me ‘ sir ' in the 
theatre — of course you wouldn't have saluted if you 
hadn’t had to apologize ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Roger. “ They rag me so at 
that confounded O.T.C. that I don’t know what my rights 
are ! ” Then, relapsing into the easy familiarity which 
was far more consonant to him, he said, “ But, I say, 
Dartmoor — you know Miss Myrtle, don't you ? You 
must have met her at the Lorraines' ? ” 

“ Of course I have. I was trying to place you as I 
came along — you used to run the show, Miss Myrtle — 
play the accompaniments, make us shut up if we got out 
of tune, when we had a sing-song.” 

" If you promise not to tell anybody, Dartmoor,” said 
Roger, when he and Hestia had shaken hands, and talked a 
little, “ I’ll tell you something very grand about Miss Myrtle." 

“ Mum’s the word,” said his lordship. 

“ Well, Miss Myrtle's got a musical comedy accepted 
and being rehearsed ! ” 

“ That puts the lid on ! I shall hardly dare to talk 
to you after that — I have the very highest respect for 
musical comedy ! ‘ It’s my form of Art,’ I used to tell 

Miss Lorraine, when she was ragging me about not taking 
an interest in anything but sport. I am very musical in 
that way. Is your musical comedy going to be given under 
your own name, Miss Myrtle ? ” 

“ No,” said Roger, lying hastily and sublimely, “ she 
wouldn't allow it — it wouldn’t do, you know.” 

“ No, of course not,” said Lord Dartmoor ; “ it would 
bring a whole lot of chaps like me round her.” 

“ That would be dreadful,” said Hestia, so seriously 
that he thought that she meant it. 

To relieve his crestfallenness, she said, “ I'm not afraid 
of you alone, Lord Dartmoor. If you'll choose a day next 
week to come and dine with me at six-thirty . . .” 

“ Six-thirty ? ” he said. “ Don't you mean lunch ? " 

“ It's the hour at which his country requires Roger to 


184 


Grace Lorraine 


dine, if he’s going to have any time afterwards before he 
has to get back to camp.” 

“ Oh, well, I’ll come I I’d dine with you before break- 
fast if you asked me! ” 

“ What I was going to say to you was that if you would 
choose a night next week to dine with me at that unearthly 
hour, at Fleurdelys House, Kingsburgh, you’ll find 
Roger there too, and I’ll play you some of the songs out 
of my musical comedy. It’s called “ The War-workers,” 
and all the parts are going to be filled by girls — except just 
one or two of the leading ones.” 

“ Why can’t I have one of them ? ” he said. “ I'm not 
such a very rotten amateur actor — I belong to the Old 
Stagers’.” 

“ I’m sure that we should be only too delighted to have 
you, if your King and country can spare you.” 

“ That's just it,” he said. “ What’s the matter with 
Monday ? ” 

“ Monday’ll suit me all right.” 

“ Then Monday’s the day.” 

“ Couldn’t you let us hear the other show now ? ” said 
the “ nut ” who was sitting next to Lord Dartmoor on the 
other side, and was getting rather tired of their animated 
conversation. 

“ Pardon, I’m sure,” said his lordship. ” When you’ve 
been to the piece as often as I have, you’ll know that this 
part isn’t worth listening to.” 

The “ nut ” seemed to think this a perfectly good explana- 
tion, and transfered his attention from the stage to his 
toes, with gloomy resignation. 

But Hestia said, “ He’s quite right — I don’t want to miss 
a word of it. I’m not so blase as you are, Lord Dartmoor.” 

* * * * * * * 

Roger taxied her back to Kingsburgh, after the perform- 
ance. He did not want to waste time on one of the tonsured 
suppers of the war : he much prefered sandwiches and a 
thermos of coffee at Fleurdelys House. And he did not 
hurry over them. Hestia’s rooms were on the ground floor, 
*o he would not be disturbing irate slumberers. Hestia 


An O.T.C. and a Musical Comedy 135 

was a beautiful woman, and she had listened to the night- 
ingales With him on that night in J une. 

******* 

Roger was not very sanguine about the Sunday, con- 
sidering it trom the point of view oi finding gaieties tor 
Hestia. For a person who does not play golt, there was 
no point in taking her to Raneiagh so late in the autumn, 
and Albert Hall concerts were not in his line, and he could 
not think of any friend who was a member of Prince’s to 
give him vouchers. He did not believe her protests that 
she would rather be shown the camp in the morning, and 
spend the time quietly at Fleurdelys House in the after- 
noon, than do anything else. 

The evening was simple — he wanted to dine at the 
Carlton, and taxi her back to Kingsburgh in time for him 
to return to the camp at the regulation nour. 

She would not hear of it. “We should have to leave 
before we'd finished our fish, to make sure of your being 
back in time. We'll dine at one of the Kingsburgh hotels — 
I couldn’t give you a decent dinner at my place on Sunday 
night, or I'd ask you there.” 

The “ Leper ” was hanging about when Roger took 
Hestia into the camp. Roger purposely did not see him. 
The “ Leper ” noticed it, and seeing the hated Roger with 
such a beautiful and dainty woman fanned the tiames of 
his iury. He determined to revenge himself. 

Roger thought no more about it, and left the camp as 
soon as he could, thinking it must be a very dull place for 
Hestia. He was rather glad that she had said that they 
should spend Sunday afternoon in her rooms, because he 
wanted to hear the best tunes in her musical comedy 
played two or three times over, so that he could catch them, 
betore Lord Dartmoor heard them. He used to stand over 
her while she was playing, with the air of a person who was 
going to turn over the leaves of her music for her. He was 
so stupid about music that he never knew when he ought 
to turn over, but this did not trouble him, because he did 
not stand there with any idea of turning over leaves, but to 
play with the little jet curls which lay on the creamy nape 
ot her neck. 


CHAPTER XXI 

LORD DARTMOOR INTERVENES 

P UNCTUAL to the minute, Lord Dartmoor’s car 
pulled up in front of Fleurdelys House. He found 
Hestia in great distress — Roger, who, now that he knew 
that Fleurdelys House possessed a telephone, had a great 
deal of use out of the camp telephone, had just 'phoned 
that he would be unable to come, because he had been con- 
fined to camp, for an imaginary misdemeanour which he 
explained. 

Hestia told Lord Dartmoor what had happened as well 
as she could. He told his car to wait, and went to ring up 
the camp. He asked for Private R. Wynyard, No. 1250. 
He was told that they could not send for a private. 

“ Give me the Commandant, then,” he said. 

“ Who are you ? ” came the not very civil reply. 

“ I am Lord Dartmoor, private secretary to ” ; he 

mentioned the name of the General Officer in whose depart- 
ment the O.T.C. came. 

The clerk at the other end of the telephone was too 
ignorant to know that this was the case, and said that the 
Commandant was out. 

Lord Dartmoor, being a very spoiled young man, was 
unaccustomed to being crossed by subordinates, and, 
asking Hestia to put back dinner for half an hour, got back 
into his car, and proceeded, much beyond the speed limit, 
to the camp, where he desired to see the Commandant. 

The Commandant was really away, and the officer who 
received him, awed by his uniform and his title, flew off 
to find Private Wynyard, whom, for some to him unin- 
136 


Lord Dartmoor Intervenes 187 

telligible reason, Lord Dartmoor wished to see, in the 
absence of the Commandant. 

Their meeting was, of course, very formal, but walking 
him out of earshot, Lord Dartmoor saw at once that Roger 
had been confined to camp by the Commandant on a 
trumped-up charge made by a jack-in-the-box subordinate. 

Individual action like this is hard to reverse, and Lord 
Dartmoor did not attempt to do anything for Roger in 
this matter. But he saw various people, and asked many 
questions, which convinced even a man of his inferior brain 
that there was something radically wrong in the manage- 
ment of this camp. When he had done this, he telephoned 
to Hestia, saying that it was quite impossible for him to 
secure Roger's presence in the absence of the Commandant, 
but that he would come back himself, and take a bite with 
her. 

The tone in which he said it infered that after a very 
hurried dinner he would return to town. But he did not 
hurry away ; he took quite an ordinary time over his 
dinner, and stayed to hear her music before he went, 
thinking her a most delightful woman, and imagining that 
Roger was her fiance. 

He was right, however, in thinking that in helping Roger 
he would be obliging her. 

******* 

Lord Dartmoor's chief happened to be consumed with 
the desire for efficiency, and hearing such a very un- 
promising report of the Kingsburgh O.T.C., motored down 
with him on Tuesday morning to look into things for 
himself. 

One glance at the Commandant was enough for him. 
He saw that this important position had been entrusted 
to a gouty “ dug-out," who, instead of bringing out the good 
points of the boys entrusted to this charge, would be likely 
to drive them into revolt. He saw that the non-com- 
missioned officers “ The Bloater " had selected for drill 
instruction and disciplinary purposes were more fit to deal 
with dockers than with Public-Schoolboys, who were 
exactly the right material for officers, and exceedingly 


138 


Grace Lorraine 


anxious to fit themselves in the shortest possible time, and 
that many of the other posts were as badly tilled. 

He gave the Commandant a brief notice of dismissal, 
and personally examined all the other officers, who would 
not be affected by the change of Commandant. 

Finding one of them who appeared to have sympathy 
and insight, he inquired into the character of the sergeants 
who did the drilling and disciplinary work, meaning to 
warn the incoming Commandant that their cases must be 
looked into, if he did not, as he probably would, wish to 
appoint men of his own choosing. 

Then the great man drove away, unconscious that he 
had been assisting at an act of poetical justice. For it so 
happened that Colonel Herring had not been satisfied of 
the genuineness of the charge prefered against Roger by 
Sergeant Lepper, but had allowed it to pass because he 
recognized Roger as the private who had not given him a 
lift in his taxi a few nights before. He confined Roger to 
the camp for twenty-four hours. 

The great man, who had examined the Adjutant’s notes, 
having observed that the case of Private Wynyard, which 
had caused his surprise visit, had been punished by a sen- 
tence which had already expired, did not go into that 
matter with him, but went into it very sharply with the 
Commandant, who ought to have looked into the charge 
with more intelligence and tact. 

The Commandant and his sergeants went, and great 
changes were made in the staff, without Roger knowing 
the wherefore. He merely knew that the new men were 
much easier to work with, and taught him more, and 
went to his dinner undisturbed, to Fleurdelys House. 

Hestia’s love for him grew nightly, and so did his mend- 
ship lor her, but he did not regard it as affecting his rela- 
tions with Grace, for whom he still hoped, though he met 
with no encouragement. 

So much in love with Roger was Hestia, that she deter- 
mined to utilize her chance re-meeting with Lord Dartmoor 
to try and hurry on his commission. Love lent her eyes ; she 
detected the grounds on wmch she could accomplish her 
desire, and went to see Lord Dartmoor at his chief’s office. 


Lord Dartmoor Intervenes 


139 


She could not get in to him ; he sent out a note which 
said that he was busy with his chief, and would be during all 
his office hours that day, but that if she would come to his 
house at ioo, Richmond Terrace, just outside the War 
Office, during his tea-time, from five to five-thirty, he would 
give her a cup of tea and hear her business. 

His chief, he knew, did not like ladies interfering at the 
War Office, and he himself was anxious to serve her for two 
reasons : he had conceived a great personal liking for her, 
and he was rejoiced to find Roger, as he thought, attached 
to her instead of, as he had supposed, to Grace Lorraine, 
to whom he felt more than ever attracted now that he could 
court her not as an heiress, but simply as the woman whom 
he loved. 

“ Well, Miss Myrtle, what can I do for you ? ” he asked, 
when she was shown into his pleasant drawing-room, 
looking out on the river. “ Has our friend been the 
victim of any more rough justice ? ” 

“Not in the sense you mean. Lord Dartmoor, but I 
came to point out to you that his presence at the camp at 
all can only have been the result of a mistake.” 

“ If it is, we will do our best to remedy it.” 

“You are making him go through the training in the 
O.T.C. when he has already been a sergeant in the O.T.C., 
which ought to count.” 

“ Where did he do it ? ” 

“ At Oxford — he only resigned it a couple of years ago.” 

“ And your point is . . . ? ” 

“ That he has a right to be gazetted without the loss 
of time involved in going through the whole training 
again.” 

“ That’s a perfectly good point. If he sends it to me in 
writing, I’ll lay it before the chief.” 

“ But he could only do it through his commanding officer, 
who is hostile to him, and certainly would refuse to do it. 
The new man has not arrived yet.” 

“ Ah, yes ! — Well, when the new man does arrive, I’ll 
tell him to make an inquiry as to whether there are any such 
cases in his camp. He’ll then hear about Wynyard’s case, 
and possibly others, and report to our office.” 


140 


Grace Lorraine 


" Thank you so much, Lord Dartmoor/’ 

” It’s a duty as well as a pleasure.” 

******* 

The result of the inquiry was that Roger's case was 
reported, and he was recommended for an immediate com- 
mission, which was granted to him, in one of the Battalions 
of the East Surrey Regiment, quartered in the new wooden 
cantonments in Kingsburgh Park. Hestia remained at 
Fleurdelys House. It was obvious that she was going 
to make a good deal of money from “ Mr. Dryander’s ” 
musical comedy, and there was no way in which she could 
derive greater pleasure from it than by remaining in the 
vicinity of Roger, while being in the London district was 
beneficial to her interests from the business point of view. 
Those who were in the know about musical matters were 
perfectly aware that the music of Dryander's musical 
comedy was in reality hers, that she had only collaborated 
with him so as to get his name and his stage experience for 
“ The War-workers.” 

Roger came to see her very frequently, and there was no 
set-back of any kind in their friendship. It was so quiet 
and steady that it seemed as if it might go on for ever. 

Nor did there seem any immediate prospect of his 
Regiment moving to France, but in December they 
received orders to mobilize directly after Christmas. 

Roger, in company with half the Regiment, received 
leave to go and spend Christmas week at home. He 
hastened down to Devonshire. 

Hestia, whose love had developed into a passion now 
that he was a full-blown officer, under orders for the 
front, did not go. She felt that she would see him again 
when he returned to the cantonment, and that she would 
rather not witness his pursuit of Grace if his love was 
unabated. He would certainly like her, Hestia, much 
better for sparing him embarrassing situations. 

With characteristic generosity she wrote to Grace to 
express the hope that she would find it in her heart to 
accept Roger before he went to the front. 


CHAPTER XXII 


“ ADIEU FOR EVER MORE, MY LOVE ! 

ADIEU FOR EVER MORE ! ” 

W HEN Roger reached Seacombe in the afternoon, he 
had tea patiently with his mother and his grand- 
father. He was too good a son to go and see Grace before 
he had done his duty at the Rectory, but his mother knew, 
without his saying it, that every minute of the time he 
was itching to get to Grace, however affectionate and un- 
preoccupied he might be. 

Grace met him with a kiss, when he walked into their 
house unannounced, and slipped her arm through his 
when they went for a walk in the Abbot’s garden. 

Roger’s personality had never possessed so much charm 
for her before. It was not only that he was much hand- 
somer in his khaki Field Service jacket (the most graceful 
in its lines of all uniforms), and with his long wiry legs in 
admirably-cut cord breeches, and shapely brown gaiters, 
which shone like a mirror, though these had their influence 
on a woman with an eye for form. 

It was more because she felt that Roger now was in 
his proper element, that he had, to adapt the Duke of 
Wellington’s famous simile, been qualifying in the playing 
fields of Rugby and Oxford to lead his country’s soldiers. 
She was only thinking of him, of course, as leading his 
company in a charge — Grace’s mind did not picture larger 
military operations. Roger looked so tall, so strong, so 
resolute, such a successor to King Arthur’s knights. 

She gave herself up frankly to the enjoyment of his 
society, and, had he but known it, he might have kissed 

M 1 


142 


Grace Lorraine 


her as he kissed Hestia, when they were sitting in Grace's 
studio, the room with an oriel, looking north, through 
which the Abbot had watched coming and departing 
cavalcades on the London Road. Like the* other out- 
ward windows, you could only see from it by mounting 
the steps into the recess. Roger and Grace were sitting 
on the steps ; the room possessed no couch, and only one 
chair. 

She was glad that he was going to the front. She 
would still have been glad if he had been her husDand, 
and she had loved him as passionately as Hestia did. 
In war she felt it a reproach to have any man of hers, 
who was fit, and of the fighting age, in his home instead 
of with his Regiment. Both she and Lady Cynthia were 
true daughters of old medieval stocks, which expected 
their men to be warriors when they reached the age. 

She was not growing sentimental about Roger. She was 
not comparing him in her mind to Guidarello Guidarelli, 
the Knight who lies dead in deathless beauty in the 
Museum of Ravenna, a statue which she knew and loved 
so well. He reminded her more of Sir John Chandos, the 
Knight of Crecy, whom Froissart pictures riding into all 
his battles with a smile. She thought at that moment 
what a good sportsman Roger would have been as a 
knight, how expert he would have been with his weapons, 
what a preux chevalier he would have been in his code. 
Yes, Roger was a born knight-errant — God bless him. 
But how intolerably slow it would have been to be a 
knight’s wife in a lonely castle, with no excitement ever 
before you, except being captured, castle and all, while 
he was away ! She had often thought that her favourite 
Middle Ages must have been a poor time for women. 

The week passed very quickly. It was delightful, 
having Roger about again all day long : Roger blundering 
in just after breakfast, Roger playing golf with her, in his 
uniform, minus the belts, so that nobody should think 
that he was not serving ; Roger in a changed uniform, a 
tunic of exactly the same pattern, but with slacks instead 
of breeches and gaiters, coming to fetch her down to 
dinner at the Rectory, or to share the pensioners' dinner 


u Adieu for Ever More, my Love ! ” 


143 


at the Abbot’s Lodging ; Roger mooning about their 
drawing-room, which was called the library, until it was 
time for her to turn him out ; Roger with his mind always 
concentrated upon her. 

The wonder of it was that he had made none of his 
usual attempts to propose to her. She had so often thought 
that he was on the point of it, that she had turned over in 
her mind what she was to say to him again and again. 

By the offer of one of Mr. Ebbutt’s cars, Roger was 
able to pick up the midnight train from Plymouth to 
London at Seacombe Road, which gave him until nearly 
midnight to divide between Grace and the Rectory on 
his last day at home. Every night he had had two or 
three hours’ talk when he got back to the Rectory, for 
Grace turned him out about ten o’clock, and to Roger 
bed before midnight was like lunch before one o’clock. 
Ten was the Rectory hour also for going to bed, but his 
mother was only too willing to sit up with Roger. She 
was not jealous of all the time which he spent with Grace : 
Captain Wynyard had done just the same with her, and 
she recognized the fact that a man in love, before or after 
marriage, belongs to the woman of his choice, and not 
to his mother or father. 

When Grace was at the Rectory, which was very often, 
she generally made a point of keeping Roger with his 
mother as much as possible. Grace knew that Lady 
Cynthia wanted her to marry Roger as much as he did 
himself. If Roger had had his mother’s brains, Grace 
Lorraine might have been Mrs. Roger Wynyard before this. 

And Lady Cynthia knew that she could do nothing to 
help her son ; she could only be a spectator and hope 
for the best. In point of fact, she did help him, by the 
fact that Grace looked upon her as a mother. 

On that last night Grace dined with them at the Rectory. 
She was glad to observe that Roger, while his eyes were 
riveted on her, devoted most of his conversation to his 
mother, and that splendid old septuagenarian, his grand- 
father, who, if ever it came to defending their homes, 
would inevitably lead the forces of the village. The 
genial Harvey Wynyard had both body and soul of iron. 


144 


Grace Lorraine 


Their conversation was of the general, futile nature 
which distinguishes conversations when those we love 
best are leaving in an hour or so to go to the back of the 
earth, or the front of the battle. 

The real things have been said ; the protagonists are 
merely exhibiting the British philosophy, which is only 
priceless in tight corners, where there is nothing left to 
do but to die well. 

Nine and half-past had struck, and as ten struck Grace 
got up to go home. Roger, of course, was to escort her. 
It was wintry weather, and she had brought the big tweed 
coat, and the tweed hat with an eagle’s feather, which 
she used when she was going to and from the golf links. 

Half-way between the Rectory and the monastery was 
a hermitage, which Mr. Lorraine had had cleaned out, 
and fitted with seats, as a refuge from the weather, in 
case of sudden storms. Roger and Grace had often sat 
down to talk in it, and when Roger, who was carrying a 
fine electric torch, turned into it, Grace followed him 
meekly, though she knew that the dreaded and the inevit- 
able must be going to happen. 

Roger laid his torch where the lamp used to burn when 
the image of the Virgin filled the niche, so as to throw a 
light across the chapel just where the beloved would stand. 

“ I’ve brought you in here, Grace,” he said, “ because 
I wished to finish what I have to say without interruption. 
This is rather a critical moment in our fives, and I am 
going to be parted from you, for a long time — if I ever 
come back. Of course, I expect to come back — anybody 
who feels fife so strong in his veins would. But one can’t 
help facing the fact that an Infantry officer has rather 
an outside chance.” 

” Of course you will come back, Roger dear ! Don’t 
talk like that,” said Grace, prompted by a guilty conscience. 

“ Who knows ? I shall soon be in the hands of God, 
as old ladies would say — just as if one wasn't always in 
the hands of God ! ” 

” And I pray that He may take care of you ! ” said 
Grace devoutly. 

“ He ought to listen to my grandfather, if He listens 


“ Adieu for Ever More, My Love ! ” 


145 


to any human being when He is arranging our destinies. 
Bat I wo aid rataer tninx lixe Henry Hudson than tnink 
liice the old ladies." 

“ Wnat is tnat ? " asked Grace. Even at such a moment 
she could hardly repress a smile at Roger's having got 
hold of a literary tag wnich she did not know. 

“ On, just a tning wnich I heard my gran dp at er quote 
in one of nis sermons. I daresay Hudson was a Devon- 
shire man — most of the early navigators were." 

“ Weil, what did he say, Roger ? You haven't told 
me that yet." 

“ I don't remember the sort of thing exactly, but it 
was wh^n the mutineers, because they would not go any 
further, had turned him and his little grandson adrift 
in a boat on that sort of ocean which is still called Hudson's 
Bay, that he said, as he was cast off, ‘ We are as near God 
by sea as we are by land.’ And that is what I think about 
battles, Grace." 

“ Dear old Roger, I'm sure you do ! It wouldn't 
be like you to be afraid of anything that ever was created." 

“ There's only one thing that I’m afraid of." 

“ And what's that, Roger ? " 

“I'm afraid of being afraid. I hope to God I never 
shall be." 

“ Of course you won’t ! You couldn’t, Roger." 

“ I’m as near it as ever I was now — I'm afraid of saying 
what I want to." 

“You needn't be — I shan’t bite you, even if I can't 
do what you ask me." 

“ That’s exactly what I'm afraid of. Grace, will you 
promise to marry me, if I get safe out of this ? " 

“ Why need you put it like this, Roger ? Why can’t 
you let me part from you as your mother would part from 
you — let me part from you as the biggest friend I ever 
had, or could have ? On this basis you can be as affec- 
tionate as ever you please." 

“ But I don’t want you only as a friend, Grace — I 
want you as a wife ! And it would be something for me 
to try and live for, if I am badly wounded, instead of 
wanting to * go out.' " 


io 


146 


Grace Lorraine 


“ What wicked nonsense, Roger ! Fancy a man like 
you talking of wanting to die ! It would be wicked and 
absurd even if I were married to somebody else ! But I 
have never said that I wouldn't marry you — I’ve only 
said that I wouldn’t marry you until I was sure that we 
could live happily for ever afterwards, like people in 
stories.” 

“ It comes to much the same thing,” he said gloomily. 

“ It doesn’t, and you know that it doesn’t.” 

“ Then, why can’t you promise, Grace ? ” 

" How can I promise ? How can I tell that you will 
be any better qualified to be my life-companion when 
you come back from the war ? The odds are that when 
your life is full of serious things as well as sport, you 
won’t have any room for the things which make up a 
woman’s life.” 

“You are very hard.” 

" No, I’m not. Parting from you will be a worse sorrow 
than parting from any other human being except my 
father would be. And natural affection apart, it would 
be worse even than from parting from him. I love you, 
Roger, dearly, but I cannot promise to marry you, after 
the war.” 

” Oh, well,” he said, " I suppose I had better be taking 
you home. There isn’t any more to be said, is there ? ” 

“I’m afraid not. But you aren’t parting in anger, 
are you ? ” 

“ How could I part in anger from you ? We’re not 
parting for a few minutes yet.” 

As they left the hermitage she wondered why he had 
not taken her in his arms, and poured out the full measure 
of his affection for once. But partly he had no heart to 
do it, and partly he did not wish to do a thing which 
would make him miss her more poignantly afterwards, 
when he could neither see her, nor hope that she would 
ever be his. 

They dropped into commonplace conversation about 
life at the front, as they followed the winding road up 
to the great gate of the monastery, where she outraged 
the dignity of the wicket by opening it with a Yale key. 


“ Adieu for Ever More, My Love ! ” 


147 


The door of the Abbot's Lodging was always open. 
Mr. Lorraine came down the stairs as they entered, to 
say good-bye to Roger, but after five minutes of affec- 
tionate leave-taking, went up again to bed, imagining 
that his daughter and Roger would have much to say 
to each other before they parted. He was astonished 
when, a few minutes later, he heard the front door shut, 
and Grace come upstairs. He did not go out to speak 
to her ; he thought that the moment migiit be too sacred. 
******* 

Roger's good-bye had been of the briefest. Their 
hands met, their lips met in one long kiss, and then it 
was : 

“ Good-bye, and God bless you, Grace ! " 
and 

“ Good-bye — bon voyage, and safe return, Roger ! " 
and with an echo of rapid footsteps across the small court, 
and the banging of the wicket gate to snap the lock, Roger 
had passed out of Via Pacis — perhaps for ever. 

******* 

Roger did not allow the scene through which he had 
passed to shadow his last hour with his mother. He 
was his sunniest and play fullest with her, at heart un- 
altered since the days when she gave him his first lesson 
in cricket, while he was still in sailor suits. His type of 
man is always particularly dear to a mother. 

So Lady Cynthia was torn between tenderness for the 
child, and the desire to see the man strike a blow for his 
country. 

They spent a lovely hour together, in the closest 
communion. 

“ Roger," she said, “ promise me not to expose your- 
self needlessly. If you are serving any military purpose 
— saving or storming a position, which helps to win a 
battle, take any risk, offer your life freely. But do not 
play to the gallery, with your life — that isn't courage, 
it's vanity." 

“ All right. Mater — I’m not out to win the Victoria 
Cross, if that’s what you mean." 


10 * 


148 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I don’t think I do mean that/’ she said, and she 
knew that he was belying himself, for of all men likely to 
dash out to save a wounded comrade, at any risk to his 
own life, her Roger was the man. “ And, Roger, do write 
to me every day.” 

“ I'll try, Mater, but that’s the hardest proposition I 
was ever up against.” 

Then there was silence for a little. Presently she said, 
with a break in her voice, “ Have you any last directions 
which you wish to give, in case . . . ? ” Her voice 
faltered. “ In case ... in case anything should happen 
to you.” 

“ Well, I want you to have all my things, Mater, except 
that I should like Grace to accept my ring, if she will, 
and I should like you to give my wrist-watch to Hestia 
Myrtle.” 

“ To Miss Myrtle ? Why, Roger ? Of course I’ll do 
it, but I don’t understand why.” 

“ Well, we’ve been great friends, Mater, for years, 
and ...” he hesitated for a minute ; he thought of 
saying that she had been very kind to him while he was 
at Kingsburgh, but a better reason flashed upon him just 
in time, which was no more the real reason than the other. 

“ You know, it was Miss Myrtle,” he said, “ who fetched 
the lifeboat-men who saved us, and Miss Myrtle who got 
my having to be at the O.T.C. squashed, and got me my 
commission.” 

“ Miss Myrtle ? Why, how on earth did she manage 
it?” 

“ She went and worried Dartmoor, who is private 
secretary to the General who is head of the O.T.C. business, 
and he got it put through.” 

" Lord Dartmoor ? ” said Lady Cynthia. “ How did 
she get to know him so well ? Of course, she met him up 
at the Manor House — I can quite understand that. But 
how did she get to know him well enough for this ? ” 

It was hateful to Roger to have to tell half-lies to his 
mother, at what might be their last meeting, and he seemed 
to be plunging deeper and deeper, but consoled himself 
with the idea that it was kinder to deceive her than to 


“ Adieu for Ever More, My Love ! ” 149 

tell her the truth ; it would be hateful to say anything 
which unsettled her at such a moment. 

An inspiration saved him from telling her an exact 
untruth. He said, “ She met him through musical- 
comedy.’ ' 

She did, in the Gaiety stalls, but that was not the sense 
which his words conveyed to his mother. 

“You know that she has written a musical-comedy 
with Dryander, and that’s why she’s up in town just 
now ’’ — Roger really believed this — “ and musical- 
comedy’s Dartmoor’s weakness.” 

“ Oh, I see,” said Lady Cynthia. “ She’s got into that 
set, has she, through her success ? Well, I hope she’ll 
get out of it safely ! She’s so lovely and so sympathetic 
that one can’t help being anxious.” 

Roger pretended to scratch his head. He had done 
it since he was a child to mean that he was puzzled. 

“ I mean what I say, Roger — she’s just the sort of girl 

who ” Lady Cynthia’s pursing of her lips expressed 

more than she would have said in words. “ I’ll send her 
your watch,” she said, “ if anything should happen to 
you, and I hope that I shall not have to send it to her, 
for more reasons than one.” 

The last moments were taken up with the mother’s 
care for her offspring. She entreated him, if he was sent 
out to storm trenches, to wear the cuirass, of small plates 
and links of hardened steel, which has so reduced the 
mortality among our Infantry officers. 

“ I couldn’t do it. Mother, unless every man in the 
Regiment had one — I shouldn’t like to be better protected 
than the others.” 

“ This is fustian, Roger — your men will be much more 
grateful for having one officer left to lead them, than for 
any chivalry of this sort. It’s the Government’s fault 
for not supplying them, and making their use compulsory. 
They would save at least half the casualties when our 
men are attacking machine-guns. The French have all 
sorts of contrivances of this sort, and that’s why their 
attacks are so much less costly than ours.” 

“ I quite agree with you, Mother — I think it’s rotten, 


150 


Grace Lorraine 


the Government not making the troops use body-armour 
where its use would mean victory instead of defeat. But 
until the Government give those orders, or its use becomes 
general, I couldn’t use one.” 

“ That’s mere quixotism, Roger, when so many men 
in the Infantry do use them.” 

“ I can’t help it, Mother — I couldn’t do it.” 

“ Well, you will wear that Gieve waistcoat when 
you’re crossing, at any rate ? ” 

“No, I can’t do that either, Mater, unless the others 
have belts of some sort.” 

“ That’s flat foolishness, Roger ! Do you suppose any 
drowning man was ever consoled by the fact that all his 
friends would be drowned too ? ” 

“ I can only say the same thing over again — I think we 
ought all to have them, when there are submarines about. 
But unless everybody has them, I can’t use mine.” 

“ I knew you’d say that, Roger, but I hope that you’ll 
think of your mother when the time comes.” 

“ Let’s talk of something else, Mater — we haven’t much 
time to waste,” he said. He had his arm round her, and 
was kissing her affectionately. “ I’ll tell you one thing 
before I go. Mother, which I think will please you. Do 
you remember that when first I went to school you made 
me promise that I would never tell a lie because I was 
afraid — that if it meant my getting a licking if I didn’t 
tell one, I was to take it, unless I could fight for it ? Well, 
Mother, I’ve kept my word — I never have told a lie because 
I was afraid.” 

But even while he was telling her, he knew that what 
he was saying was only true of being physically afraid. 
He had told her what were practically lies this very even- 
ing, so that he might not hurt her, and he must leave her 
with that lie upon his lips. Casuistry was to lie heavily 
upon his soul before they met again, if ever they met 
again. 

The last few minutes before they said their words of 
farewell they passed in a silent embrace. Men like Roger 
express themselves best thus. 

When they had said their farewells, the parting did 


u Adieu for Ever More, My Love 1 ” 151 


not come after all, for Mr. Ebbutt came round with his 
motor and begged Lady Cynthia and her father-in-law to 
go to the station with Roger. He himself, in the almost 
Arctic furs which he had worn in America, was going to 
drive outside beside the chauffeur, he said. He would 
have driven them, had he been able, to make the excuse 
easier. 

Long as she lived, Lady Cynthia would never forget 
that race to the station, through the darkness, with 
obscured lights, up and down terrific hills, with Roger 
facing her, but hidden from her by the night, in the last 
hour which they would spend together for so long. 

At the station the parting was an easy one ; you cannot 
have a great emotion in the same degree twice. It seemed, 
when the London express from the West stopped at the 
platform one minute, to take up passengers, and Lady 
Cynthia hastily kissed her son, as he scrambled into the 
train, to go to the front, that she might be only seeing 
him off to Oxford, for the eight weeks of the term — they 
parted so cheerily, with such almost commonplaces. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

THE LOOSE END 

O NCE in the train, Roger’s cheerfulness soon 
evaporated. The other occupants of the carriage, 
observing the dejection which was creeping over his 
face, imagined that it was the parting from his mother, 
over which he had bluffed while she was with him to 
keep her spirits up. 

But he was not thinking of his mother. He was think- 
ing of Grace, whose pity he had refused. Why had he 
refused it ? Was it anger or pride or scorn which had 
impelled him ? He did not know, but instinct had made 
him refuse. And his leaving, except for that last hand- 
shake and kiss, had been almost like a quarrel. 

Now he felt nothing but the bitterest regret that he 
had repelled the offered affection. Perhaps, while she 
was yielding to his kisses, the contact might have generated 
a wave of feeling which would have swept her off her feet, 
and made her promise to be his wife. Could she have 
resisted ? If not, what had he missed ? 

And apart from the chance of overcoming the stubborn 
resistance of her mind, how often was he to regret in the 
lonely nights which were in front of him, if his life was 
spared, that he had cut himself off from the priceless 
minutes which he might have enjoyed, and treasured for 
ever afterwards as the greatest privilege of his life ? 

He cursed himself for a proud fool, who, because he 
could not have one forbidden dish, had refused a feast 
while he was fasting. 


152 


The Loose End 


153 


A calculating man might have judged that to accept 
the offer of friendship on however intimate terms, might 
be to accept his permanent relegation from the category 
of lovers to the category of friends. It was an old caprice 
of Grace’s to say to a man — she had said it to Lord Dart- 
moor and at least a dozen others — “ I could never con- 
template marrying you, but we can be great friends if 
you are content to be no more.” 

But true as this might be, Roger was not a calculating 
man, and not a shadow of the thought had drifted across 
his brain. It was his pride, which she had outraged, which 
had made him refuse her offer so abruptly, and almost 
cut off their farewell. She had tried to buy him off the 
dearest wish of his heart with a mess of pottage. 

And now, in his loneliness, as he sat in that railway- 
carriage, speeding through the gloom, through the 
Somersetshire vales, and across the downs of Wiltshire, 
it seemed to him as if he would have given all he possessed 
for that mess of pottage. 

He had earned his own respect, it was true, but of what 
worth was his self-respect, when he had boasted to his 
mother that he had never told a lie, though he had been 
deceiving her but a few minutes earlier ? 

He reached London before daylight, before there were 
any taxis in the station yard, or within call of a whistle 
outside. When he had telephoned for taxis, without 
success, for half an hour, he sat down in the first-class 
waiting-room at the station, utterly bored and utterly 
“ blue.” There was nobody else in the waiting-room, and 
he had nothing to do but yield to depressing thoughts, 
to which was added the reflection that he had to report 
himself at the camp at eight o’clock, and there did not 
seem the least prospect of his being able to do so, even if 
he took a taxi the whole way, as he intended to do. 

But at about seven o’clock a taxi crawled into the 
station, as limp as a casual who has been spending the 
night in the park, and the porter, who was looking out 
for one for him, came and fetched him. 

He managed to report himself in time, but everything 
else went wrong. Both the Colonel and the Adjutant 


154 


Grace Lorraine 


were very cross ; half the transport and the stores, which 
were to accompany the Regiment to France, were not 
yet forthcoming, and the last drill had been held, and 
the men’s kit had been packed and unpacked twice already, 
and there was nothing for officers or men to do, except 
bear the brunt of the Colonel’s displeasure. But Roger 
was kept hanging about the camp until after six o’clock, 
when he went off to see Hestia, with whom he had not 
had one word all day, because he could not leave the camp, 
and the Adjutant had commandeered the Regimental 
telephone for conversations with the War Office. 

The delay had not improved his spirits. It was not 
quite the usual Roger who turned up at Fleurdelys House 
at half-past six. 

To add to his depression, the Adjutant informed him 
just before he left the camp that instead of their sailing 
to France on the next day, Saturday, as announced, the 
War Office had postponed their sailing until the following 
Saturday, and sent a battalion of the H.A.C., which had 
everything ready, in their place, and that as nothing 
was doing, he could have his leave extended for another 
week, if he kept in town, where he could be summoned 
on the telephone should the War Office change its mind. 

He was just going to refuse — he had no heart for amusing 
himself about London after what had happened — when 
he recollected that if he could get leave for town, he could 
get leave for Kingsburgh, and that the best tonic for his 
sickness at heart would be the restful and sympathetic 
Hestia, who, if he did not feel inclined to talk, would 
play him into better spirits with the latest airs from 
music-halls and musical-comedies. 

Once more he wandered into the domain of white lies. 

“ Thanks awfully,” he said. “ I suppose it would be 
the same thing if I went to one of the hotels in Kingsburgh, 
wouldn't it ? I don’t want to dissipate, so London 
wouldn’t be much catch for me, but I may just as well 
have my last go at decent food and a decent bed.” 

“ All the same to me, my dear Wynyard,” said the 
Adjutant, who had a great liking for Roger. Roger’s 
anxiety to learn his work, and get into thorough touch 


The Loose End 


155 


with the men, had been such an excellent example to the 
other newly-hatched officers, to whom his record in 
sports at Rugby and Oxford made him a shining light. It 
was because he knew his drill so well that he was offered 
another week ; the backward boys would have to be 
drilled hard all the week to lick them into shape. 

Misfortunes never come singly. Hestia, to whom he 
telephoned while the Adjutant was talking to some of 
the others about leave, had, so he learned from her land- 
lady, gone out of town for the day, and would not be 
back until about eight, when she was going to have a 
high tea. 

“ What a beastly bore ! ” said Roger, forgetting that 
he was talking over the 'phone to a landlady. 

The landlady, who had ample reasons for knowing what 
a friend he was of Hestia’s, by the number of meals 
which he had taken in her house, and imagined that he 
was engaged to Hestia, suggested that he should take 
high tea with her. “ I can do you a bit of fish and a 
chop, you know, sir, and you needn't drink tea.” 

“ Oh, that doesn’t bother me, Mrs. Hains. I think I 
will come. I'll just take what she was going to have.” 

Hestia, to her delight, when she got home found Roger 
installed in her sitting-room. The frank kiss, the giving 
him her wrists instead of her hand, yielded him a sense 
of having something still belonging to him. 

" But, Roger, boy, what is the matter with you ? ” she 
asked, when the high tea had been discussed and cleared 
away. “ You've left your conversation behind you in 
Devonshire.” 

He explained very lamely that Grace had put the same 
slight upon him that she had put on all her other lovers — 
and this on the eve of his going to the front. 

“ Poor old Roger ! But I'm sure that Grace meant 
no slight. She was only trying to tell you that though 
she could not marry you, her friendship for you would be 
undiminished.” 

Roger refused to be consoled with reason, when he was 
haunted by the idea that by a stronger exercise of per 
sonality he might have borne down her resistance. 


156 


Grace Lorraine 


But Hestia did not intend him to spend the evening with 
remorse. She wished him to spend it with her, and 
Hestia was a countrywoman of Sappho, who had already 
given him all that love can without stepping over the 
threshold. 

Hestia’s soft mouth, Hestia’s burning eyes, pleaded 
with him, as she stood before him, with her fingers resting 
lightly on his arms. She yearned instead of speaking, and 
it was yearning that he needed. 

Presently he sat down on a big armchair, and drew her 
on to his knee. He did not kiss her ; he seemed lost in 
thought. She sat quietly, touching him lightly with hand 
or lips from time to time. 

All of a sudden he looked her in the eyes and said, “ I 
know that I shall never be really happy until I marry you, 
Hestia. Will you marry me, little Hestia ? ” 

" Oh, Roger, I can’t.” 

“ Why can’t you, Hestia ? Are you going to give me 
undiminished friendship ? Don’t you love me enough ? ” 

“ I love you more than anything in the world, but I 
can’t marry you.” 

“ Are you, too, afraid to go through life with me ? Am 
I such an ogre ? ” 

“ I don’t know what an ogre means, Roger. I shouldn’t 
worry about it if I did. Unfortunately, I have only too 
good a reason for refusing you ! ” 

“ Are you engaged to someone else ? ” 

" Worse than that — I have a husband.” 

“ You have a husband ? ” 

“Yes. I married a man who is now among our most 
successful actors. He was a king in our particular 
Bohemian circle in Chelsea. He was so witty ; he danced 
so exquisitely ; he had such a genius for getting up cheap 
revels ; he was such a joyous, rowdy soul — the life of the 
whole circle. I can assure you that I was very much envied 
when he married me. I had just enough of my money left 
to give us a honeymoon and buy a few things for our 
lodgings, and he was generally in work, though he wasn’t 
very well-paid in those days. 

“ For a few months he was good enough to me. He 


The Loose End 157 

enjoyed the excitement of being married to me, I suppose, 
for I used to be very pretty.” 

" Used to be ! ” said Roger, with a flash of his old boy- 
ishness, drawing her closer and kissing her affectionately. 

When he let her sit up again she asked eagerly, “ Am I 
pretty still in your eyes ? ” 

" Of course you are, you jolly kid ! ” 

The epithet was music to her ears, and it had its meaning, 
though it seemed an odd one to apply to a woman of her 
age. 

" But go on : tell me about him,” he added. 

" I could see even then that the liveliness and rowdiness 
which made such good fun at a Chelsea dance might be 
distracting in a husband at two in the morning.” 

” If you had married me, should I have had to leave off 
larking and be serious after eight p.m. ? ” asked Roger. 

” Oh, your fun is a very different thing to his, even in his 
best days.” 

" Did he go off colour like a Kodak film which has been 
kept ? ” 

“ It didn’t take so long as that — our honeymoon was 
hardly over before he began to get tired of me, and then he 
made no further effort to conceal from me that he was a 
drunkard. He used to come home drunk every night. 
Sometimes he was profane ; sometimes he was disgusting ; 
sometimes he was violent. He was always horrible, and 
used to beat me because I could not sell any of my music, 
though I had fifty pounds when we married — it was all 
my money which we spent on our honeymoon.” 

“ It’s a pretty bad record, little Hestia.” 

" I wish it was the worst of it. It was not very long 
before my freshness for him was exhausted, and he got 
utterly tired of me. He hardly ever came home at all, 
and he gave me no money.” 

“ The brute ! ” said Roger. “ I should like to meet him 
— I’d hammer him to a jelly, no matter what I had to pay 
for the assault ! ” 

” But you haven’t heard the worst thing of all. When I 
told him that I must have money to buy food and keep a 
roof over our heads, he sneered, ‘ Well, you know how to 


158 


Grace Lorraine 


get it, though your rotten music won’t sell. There are 
some people who would think you pretty, if I can’t see 
anything in you ! ’ ” 

“ The skunk ! ” 

“ After that I left him, and I have never spoken to him 
since.” 

“ What is his name ? ” 

“ Christopher Cadbury.” 

“ Chris Cadbury ? I’ve seen that chap lots of times ! 
He’s one of the chief favourites on * the halls.’ He’s 
awfully funny as a boozy man-about-town.” 

“ Because it’s himself, and he probably is half-intoxicated 
when he’s doing it.” 

“ He must be making a lot of money.” 

“ He is.” 

“ He must be spending it on other women, so it ought 
not to be very hard to get enough evidence to divorce him.” 

“ The worst — or, I suppose I ought to say the best — of it 
is that he doesn’t seem to care for other women any more 
than he cares for me. A stockbroker who wanted to marry 
me had him shadowed for a whole year in the hopes of my 
getting a divorce. But he doesn’t seem to care for women 
at all.” 

“ So you’re a married woman, Hestia ? ” 

“ Married nearly ten years.” 

“ And you look like a girl of twenty-three ! ” 

“ That’s because I was born with a light heart. When 
the milk is spilt I make haste to forget it.” 

“ Poor, pretty Hestia ! ” he said, kissing her mouth and 
her throat and her eyes, and playing with the elf-locks, 
which on her arranged themselves as gracefully as the 
tendrils of the jessamine. 

“ She isn’t poor — not even in the matter of money just 
now — but I like you to say that she’s pretty, Roger.” 

“ So you are, adorably ! ” 

Roger spoke from his heart ; he was grateful to have 
some long-hallowed object of his affections still in being, 
now that he had cut himself off from Grace. 

Gradually, he could not have remembered how, Roger 
fell to telling her about his life. Apart from its connection 


The Loose End 


159 


with Grace, it was the story of a boy who rather enjoyed 
the smacks and setbacks with which he opened his career 
at private and public schools — at any rate, he enjoyed 
describing them — and who afterwards took a high place 
in the hierarchy of English sport. The interesting part 
of his life to Hestia was his patient siege of a woman who 
persisted in judging him upon his qualities and finding 
them deficient. 

“ I have known Grace ever since we were little kids. I 
first began to love her when she was a flapper, with brown 
legs, ever so long and thin — from Easter to Michaelmas she 
only wore stockings in the house. She never wore a hat 
in those days, except when she went to town. She rode and 
swam, and managed a boat and played games, almost 
like a boy. I used to think her as good as a boy chum, 
and I was very particular about that in those days. She 
was so much a boy that she was as respectful to me 
as a boy would have been when I got into the School 
Eleven. So long as she had her skirts up and her hair 
down she was quite natural. She used to kiss me as a 
sister would kiss a brother, and welcome my company all 
day long, much more than I, a boy looked-up-to by other 
boys, ought to have welcomed her company.” 

“ But you did commit that hideous wrong ! ” said Hestia, 
who was always highly amused by boys at the age when 
they speak of themselves as Eton and Harrow “ men.” 

“ Yes, and it is due to this, I suppose, that my dismissal 
was so long postponed. We had been such friends that 
she simply could not dismiss me like the others.” 

“ But when she put her hair up, she terminated the old 
boy-and-girl friendship ? ” 

“Not exactly ; we continued to be constant antagonists 
or partners in games, and while we were playing, she was 
always just her old self. It was when we were doing 
nothing, and I was trying to persuade her to marry me that 
she turned queer.” 

“ So you, like the rest, found her wayward ? ” 

“ No, I can’t say that she was wayward, if I attach its 
right meaning to the word. I found her very hard and 
unchanging. I loved her so much that I tried to get her to 


160 


Grace Lorraine 


promise, whenever she was in the mood to let me talk at 
all. Sometimes she silenced me right off, but because we 
were such tremendous friends, she was generally willing 
to silence me with arguments, not orders. As a rule, she 
divided my sins into two classes — what I did and what I 
didn’t do.” 

" And what were the sins which you did ? ” 

“ Nothing — that was the chief trouble — I did nothing 
but amuse myself.” 

" And what were the sins which you didn't do ? ” 

" Not taking an interest in the things they do at Via 
Pads.” 

“ Surely she couldn't quarrel with you over that ? ” 

" No, I don't mean that she quarrelled with me because 
I did not go into the houses, one by one, and ask everybody 
what they were doing, but the sort of things which go with 
the people at Via Pacis — the reading, and the painting and 
the music, and the talk about the monastery and the ruins 
— what I call talking like a book.” 

“ Well, you aren’t very topical or lucid, Roger.” As 
she got the words out slowly, her right hand was playing 
affectionately with the well-ordered hair of the offending 
head. “ But I suppose that what she was arguing to you 
was, that as the literary and artistic side of life — and 
travel and all that sort of thing — meant so much to her, and 
you were unable to get up any interest in them, you would 
not be much of a companion for her. Some women want 
intellectual companionship from their husbands ; others 
don’t. I don’t. I only want kindness and love — not 
steady, undemonstrative, holy love, but the kind of love 
that declares itself in a hundred lover-like actions — not 
only the little playful things which you do when you’re 
kissing me, though I delight in them, but deep, passionate 
love.” 

“ I could have given her that, and she knew it. And I 
thought that when I no longer did nothing, but was a soldier 
and going to be in the trenches, a generous wave might 
come over her, and she might promise to marry me when I 
came back.” 

" And didn’t she soften even then ? ” 


The Loose End 


161 


" Not she ! She came out strong on the other side. She 
tried to make me promise only to be a friend for the future, 
by telling me that if I did, I might say a lover’s good-bye 
to her.” 

" I think you must have misunderstood her, Roger. 
Grace is hard, but I can't picture her being coarse.” 

" There was no mistake about : t,” he said gloomily. 
“ She gave me my what-do-you-call-it right enough.” 

“ Conge ? ” 

" Yes, I suppose that’s it.” 

" Poor old Roger ! ” she said, trying to win him from his 
despair with all the little caressing touches with which she 
could interpret her feelings. 

“ And now you have put the lid on by showing me that 
I can never marry you.” 

** I am so sorry, dear. I can swear that I have never 
hated my husband so much as at this moment, when he 
stands between me and the crowning opportunity of my 
life.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


MR. AND MRS. MYRTLE 



OR the next night but one, Sunday, Hestia had two 


r tickets for the great O.P. dinner to Lloyd George, 
at which Conservatives, even more than Liberals, were 
anxious to do honour to the statesman whose name is 
identified with war to the knife. 

She had bought the tickets, as the public are entitled to 
in these hard times, through a member of the club, on the 
off-chance of Roger’s being able to go to the dinner when 
he returned from his leave. She had a poor opinion of the 
punctuality of mobilization. 

“ You must go, Roger,” she said. “ All the cleverest 
men and the most ripping women on the ‘ halls ’ will come 
to the dinner, and do a turn for L.G.” 

“ All right, if you’ll let me pay for the tickets.” 

" Roger, mayn’t I even do that ? ” 

“ Certainly not ! ” 

'‘Well, you’ve got to come anyhow — they will only 
have the best music — the music you like best.” 

Everyone arrived half an hour before the dinner began, 
to be presented to the guest of the evening, and having 
experienced his smile, broke up into knots for their own 
edification. Hestia, both from the old Chelsea days and 
from her recent experiences with Mr. Dryander, had a 
large acquaintance among the beautiful girls who were 
going to furnish the entertainment of the evening. She 
introduced Roger, whom, since he was in khaki, and looked 
so thoroughly “ one of the boys,” they accepted most 


162 


163 


Mr. and Mrs. Myrtle 

graciously. She did not get another word with him until 
dinner, and even at dinner she had to share him, because 
“ Beauty ” was dotted all round them, and this being 
Roger’s first experience of the stage, he was rather 
susceptible. 

Hestia was delighted with his making such a good 
impression. It is a point of rivalry with girls in stage-land 
to be well-cavaliered. But it was unfortunate that the 
girl who sat on the other side of Roger was so much more 
beautiful than she was, and laid herself out for Roger’s 
enjoyment the whole evening. Not that she wished to cut 
Hestia out ; she was careful to play the game by including 
Hestia in the conversation. But Hestia could not help 
pangs of jealousy alternating with pleasure at having given 
Roger a treat which he had never enjoyed before. For she 
might have had him all to herself, if she had let him take her 
to the Savoy or the Carlton, as he had first suggested. 

When the songs began she was less perturbed, for then 
it was a case of everybody listening while the song lasted, 
and everybody making remarks at the same time when the 
song was done. Still, there was no reason why Leonora 
de Coucy should have explained everything to Roger so 
minutely, smiling straight into his sympathetic eyes. Of 
course, Hestia did not know the music-hall stage inside-out 
like Miss de Coucy did, but she could have explained every- 
thing sufficiently for Roger’s illumination, and in the 
matter of establishing sympathy she knew a great deal 
more, and had a better right to use it. 

Not that she had anything to complain of in Roger’s 
behaviour. He was merely being cordial to a friend to 
whom she had introduced him. It was her fault for taking 
him there and introducing him. It was strange that she 
should be more jealous of Miss de Coucy than of Grace, 
who had his heart. 

A message was brought to the Minister of Munitions, in 
a sealed note. He read it, and said good-bye very hurriedly, 
and disappeared. But it was past midnight before the last 
song was sung, and the company, after an eternity of good- 
byes, reached the doors of the hotel to disperse. 

As the Minister had passed upstairs, escorted by the 

ii* 


164 


Grace Lorraine 


manager, he had said, “ Don’t tell them down there ; 
they’re safe where they are, and it may be over before 
their concert is.” 

The banqueting halls, being down in the basement, 
the revellers had heard nothing of the tumult in the sky. 
But when they reached the hotel doors they seemed to 
have gone up into hell, for in the maze and blaze of crossing 
searchlights, they could see the devilish Zeppelins, right 
over their heads, dropping bombs on the West End of 
London ; and the anti-aircraft guns were roaring, and shells 
were bursting in the sky, and it seemed as if the Last 
Call might sound for any one of them at the next 
moment. 

Cabs there were none ; the taxis had flown to their 
lairs ; and if there had been a train for Kingsburgh on the 
time-table, all trains in and out of London were suspended 
during Zeppelin raids by the Admiralty’s orders. 

A few of the diners went back to the safety of the base- 
ment, but actresses love excitement, and are seldom lacking 
in courage, so the majority crowded into the street to see 
the spectacle from London’s best grand-stand for a Zeppelin 
raid — Trafalgar Square. As the Commissionaire could not 
get them a taxi, Roger and Hestia went with them, and 
watched until the monsters turned tail and fled for the sea. 
Hestia was too excited to be frightened, and Roger said : 

“ I suppose I ought to be thankful for getting a dress- 
rehearsal ! It may save me from stage-fr.ght on my first 
night.” 

Hestia felt that he would have made exactly the same 
remark if a bomb had fallen in the Square itself, and the 
pieces were flying all round them. She could not picture 
Roger being frightened of anything, except a woman’s 
tears. 

Then came the question of how they should get home. 
A policeman informed them that there would be no train 
to Kingsburgh, either from Charing Cross or Waterloo, 
until five forty-five in the morning. On week-days, yes, 
but on Sundays the officials had a rest. 

“ There is nothing for it, then,” said Roger, “ but to go 
to the H6tel de Luxe. They’re more accustomed than 


Mr. and Mrs. Myrtle 165 

most places to people coming in late without any 
luggage." 

“ You know best," said Hestia. She was very silent 
as they walked across the Square to it. 

Common sense told her that the Zeppelins, having once 
been driven off, were not in the least likely to come back 
again. But, just before they were driven off, she had seen 
an enormous bomb fall in Pall Mall, only a few hundred 
yards away, which made a noise like a thunder-clap and 
sent up flames and pieces of masonry and human bodies 
higher than the roofs of the tallest houses. She did not 
give way then, though she had seen the bodies quite 
plainly in the flash of the explosion. Yet, when the 
airships had gone, and she was going quietly to bed, she 
felt terrified. 

Why ? She knew quite well. She was a brave woman, 
and when she looked out of the doors of the Hotel Cecil, 
and saw the battle in the sky, and heard the deafening noise 
of the Zepp engines, and the guns, she would not have 
turned a hair even if she had been alone. Curiosity would 
have pinned her to the spot. But the last sight which she 
had witnessed — the bomb finding its prey — affected her so 
powerfully, perhaps because she had seen deaths, that she 
had only been able to endure it as she did because she had 
Roger at her side, and was hanging on his arm. 

Face the horrors of the night alone, she could not, and 
just as they were about to step into the hotel, she said to 
him in a voice whose passionate pleading he could not 
resist, " Register as Mr. and Mrs. Myrtle — I shall go mad 
if I’m left alone ! ” n - 

Roger, flushed with the most brilliant evening which 
he had ever spent in his life, and taken by surprise when 
he had not a moment to reflect, yielded where in cold blood 
his sense of chivalry and playing the game would have 
restrained him. He would have told himself that if he 
still loved Grace to the exclusion of all others, it was not 
playing the game with either woman, and that it was not 
chivalrous to take advantage of Hestia’s weakness. 

Now, in the fraction of a second that he had for reflec- 
tion, he listened to the suggestion of Mephistopheles, who 


166 


Grace Lorraine 


whispered that “ Margaret ” was not an ignorant girl, but a 
woman who had a husband too vile to mention, whom 
she wished to have divorced long ago. Her eyes, said the 
tempter, must be open. 

The fiend had been playing on more than her fears as 
Hestia crossed the Square. At one step he said, “You 
owe nothing to your husband.” At the next he cried, 
“ Your youth is slipping away.” At the next, “ This is 
the best of manhood which has ever been within your 
grasp.” At the next, “ This man whom you have loved 
as you have loved no other human being might be gone by 
this time to-morrow, will be gone, at any rate, by this 
time next week, across the sea, and soon will be leading 
his company through a hell of fire a hundred times worse 
than you have seen to-night. Only chance officers come 
out alive.” 

And all the way across the Square he dinned into her 
ears, “You did not seek this opportunity. You have not 
even the blame of thinking of it. Fate of her free will 
gave it to you, and if you disappoint Fate she will never be 
your friend again.” 

Roger wrote down in the book, as naturally as if he had 
been doing it for a couple of years of married life, “ Mr. and 
Mrs. Myrtle.” 

“We have no luggage because we’ve been dining in town 
and cannot get a taxi to take us back to Kingsburgh.” 

“ Oh, that’s all right, sir,” said the hotel clerk. “ We 
get a lot of people like this every time there’s a Zepraid.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


A LETTER FROM GRACE 

W HEN Roger got back to his hotel at Kingsburgh 
on the Monday he found some letters which his 
servant had brought over from the camp. One was in 
Grace's well-known handwriting. 

The sight of that writing threw him into a tumult of 
feelings, like the tumult of Zeppelins and searchlights and 
shell-bursts in the sky. It made him reflect on what he 
had done. Searchlights played on it from every side. It 
might not be a mortal sin against Hestia, unless some 
enemy learned of it and used it to injure her at Via Pacis. 
But he certainly could not meet Grace's glance with the 
same unashamed eyes that had saluted it for all the years 
of their friendship. 

When he had parted from Hestia an hour before, their 
new relationship had seemed to him a sort of sacrament 
crowning their affection for each other, a sort of gathering- 
up of the broken threads, which marred his enthusiasm in 
going to face the enemy. 

Now it seemed to him a cowardly breach of the code 
of chivalry which had governed his life, and taking advan- 
tage of the weakness of a woman for his own selfish pleasure. 

All this revulsion of feeling was produced by the mere 
sight of the handwriting of the woman whom he really 
loved. What would it be when he dared to open her letter, 
even if it was only written to give him the cold comfort 
which he expected ? 

He read all his other letters first, before Grace's, for 
167 


168 Grace Lorraine 

which, until yesterday, he had been hungering and 
thirsting. 

Finally he summoned up the courage to read it. It 
ran : 

“ Dear Roger, 

“ Since you will not be going to France for a few 
days, and Dad has to come up to a meeting with the 
solicitors of the insurance company, I shall come up witli 
him. As we are so poor now, we are going to a boarding- 
house, at 40, New Bedford Place, kept by some Italian 
people whom he started in business years ago. 

“ I have something very important to say to you, so 
will you come up and see me there on Tuesday night at 
nine o’clock ? Madame Barbensi is going to lend us her 
private sitting-room while we are there, so we shall be 
undisturbed. 

“ With love from us both, 

“ Yours affectionately, 

" Grace Lorraine. 

“ Please wire reply.” 

Roger had arranged to spend all his evenings, until he 
went away, with Hestia, and the very second evening he 
would have to disappoint her, if he went to Grace. He 
hated having to cry off when they were only in the second 
round. 

He felt as if he ought to go whatever happened after- 
wards, but he dreaded breaking it to Hestia. 

“ Please wire reply.” What was he to reply ? He 
could not send any reply until he had seen Hestia. He 
rushed to the hotel telephone to ring her up. Hestia was 
out, doing her shopping to give Roger a dinner of things 
which he specially liked. 

Also she expected Mr. Dryander to lunch, and though 
he and Roger were good enough friends — they often golfed 
together in summer down at Seacombe, and he used to send 
Roger, when in town, seats for the theatre — Hestia did not 
want Roger to come to Fleurdelys House while he was 
there, because if he, being a resident of Seacombe, met 


A Letter from Grace 169 

Roger at Hestia’s rooms, all Seacombe would be sure to 
know it. 

When she got home the maid said that Mr. Wynyard 
had rung her up while she was out, and would she ring 
up directly she came in ? 

She rang him up, and explained why he was not to call 
or telephone until she rang him up again. In the interval, 
Roger was chafing to send a telegram to Grace, because 
the time at which she left Seacombe might depend on it. 

It was tea-time before she telephoned again, because 
Mr. Dryander had other things besides business to discus 
after lunch. He had long been an admirer of Hestia’s, but 
the circumstances under which he had seen her at Sea- 
combe had not been favourable for developments, or he 
might have exerted himself on her behalf before this. She 
was for ever in the company of his children, or Roger, or 
the Lorraines. Before he had proposed collaboration he 
had never seen her alone for five minutes, and until he had 
seen her in her town clothes, he had no idea what a very 
pretty and dashing woman she was. And her going out to 
Kingsburgh for lodgings had put certain ideas into his head. 

He came down to Kingsburgh arrayed to make an 
impression. You would not have found a better-dressed 
man on the Stock Exchange. Music-hall people are 
eternally thinking of smartness. Mr. Dryander, who 
always took his lunch at one of the smartest hotels or 
restaurants, had the intuition to pick out the best-dressed 
men and imitate them. He knew that the ideal of the 
best-dressed men is not to enter into rivalry, but to wear 
nothing wrong. And this restrained style was specially 
needed by a man with his high colouring, and curly, care- 
fully-valeted red hair. The only thing which he allowed to 
be elaborate was the flower in his buttonhole. 

He was showing to his best advantage, and he was quiet 
and ingratiating, but somehow he was not making the 
progress that he had hoped. Hestia did not appear to be 
noticing his personality. She was confining herself 
strictly to business, and refusing the various invitations, 
though he had gauged her tastes correctly. 

It was quite obvious that though she was willing for him 


170 


Grace Lorraine 


to stay and talk as long as he pleased — and in that she was 
being tactful, not sincere — she was merely receiving him 
as a collaborator, as one whom she did not intend to know 
as well as she knew his wife. In fact, she had asked if his 
wife would be at one place to which he had invited her, 
and had excused herself when she had heard that Mrs. 
Dryander would not be present. 

Mr. Dryander was distinctly annoyed. He did not 
allow his annoyance to be seen, but he meant to make 
personal favours the price of any further collaboration. 

And all this time — while he was loitering and putting out 
personal feelers, Roger was thinking what he should say 
to Grace. 

At last the page-boy came to tell Roger that he was 
wanted on the ’phone. He flew downstairs, and then 
hesitated before he took up the receiver. Then he took 
it up very quickly and put it to his ear. 

“ Hallo ! ” 

“ Hallo ! I’m Hestia, dear. Let me apologize. I was 
out when you telephoned, and I’ve had Mr. Dryander with 
me ever since. I did not want to be telephoning to you 
while he was here — you can guess why.” 

“ Yes,” ’phoned Roger, rather dolefully — his conscience 
was accusing him. 

“ So I waited until he’d gone. What is it, dear ? ” 

“ Oh, Grace has written that she and her father are 
coming up to town to-morrow, and she wants to know if 
I can call there after dinner about nine,” said Roger, trying 
to be matter-of-fact. 

In a room his voice would have been a dreadful failure, 
but Hestia took the uncertainty of the accents as a jeu 
de phone , and thought no evil. 

“ Of course you must go, Roger. But you’ll dine with 
me first, won’t you ? ” She longed to add, “ Can’t I go 
with you ? ” She knew Grace well enough to drop in on 
her. But she had a foreboding knocking hard at her heart 
which told her that Grace had something to say which 
would make her presence not at all welcome. 

" Thanks awfully ! ” said Roger, still in the wrong voice, 
and feeling inclined to hit the telephone. 


A Letter from Grace 171 

" Are you coming along now, Roger ? ” asked a voice, 
whose exact tone he could not gauge. 

“ I’m going to the post-office to send that telegram, and 
then I’m coming on to you straight away,” he said, more 
robustly. The thing was off his mind. Hestia was not 
fractious about his leaving her to call on Grace. When a 
thing was on Roger’s mind, it weighed very heavily ; that 
was why he always pushed things off as soon as possible. 

The floor of the post-office was paved with crumpled-up 
paper before Roger Wynyard got that telegram off, and all 
he said in the end was, “ Delighted to call at your lodgings 
to-morrow night at nine. — Roger.” Which is exactly 
what he would have written without any thought at all. 

But on his way from the post-office to Fleurdelys 
House, he was again troubled. How would Hestia receive 
him ? It was only natural for her to be disappointed 
and triste. Would she be annoyed as well ? 

He need not have faltered on the doorstep. He had 
rung the bell instead of walking in unannounced. Hestia 
was serene, smiling and affectionate. She kissed him 
exactly as if nothing had happened, though she dreaded 
the import of his interview with Grace. 

“ Well, Roger, old boy, have you got the telegram 
off ? ” she asked cheerily — she knew how he disliked even 
that much literary effort. 

“ Yes, I managed it all right.” 

“ And you said you’d go ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

" That’s all right,” she said in tones of approval, which 
she was very far from feeling. 

They spent the evening as if nothing had happened or 
was going to happen. Roger, for very shame’s sake, 
could not change his attitude to Hestia, though he was 
stabbed with doubt when he thought of Grace. Hestia 
was sweet and womanly. She reciprocated, but made 
no advances, and spent most of the time at her piano. 
She could interpret her feelings in music without any 
risk of Roger’s understanding them. She felt that there 
was something in the air, something that might be inimical 
to her. She felt that Roger was uneasy and nervous. 


172 


Grace Lorraine 


But she liked to have him standing behind her, trifling 
with her hair, or what not, while she was playing, for it 
was Roger’s way, and if her forebodings were justified, it 
was all the more reason for having a golden day before 
the clouds lowered. She was not one of those who go 
out to meet trouble half-way. 

Roger, the happy-hearted, soon felt the contagion of 
her optimism, and they passed a happy evening, of the 
type which they had passed when she first came to 
Kingsburgh. 

And even after his return to his hotel, when he was 
away from the spell of her personality, he felt at peace 
with himself. Hestia had bound up his lacerated feelings 
with her friendship, like the Good Samaritan, when Grace 
had left him by the wayside so badly wounded and bruised, 
and Hestia would remain his best friend for the rest of 
their lives. Grace had shown a most obvious desire 
that he and Hestia should be friends. She would have 
been glad, he was sure, if he had married Hestia, not 
knowing, as he knew now, that Hestia had an old man 
of the sea on her lovely shoulders. Of her own accord, 
had he not parted from her so abruptly, she might have 
mentioned Hestia’s name. There was no reason why he 
should eschew Hestia. 

Fortified in his resolution, he spent all the next day 
with Hestia, avoiding tetes-d-tetes, it was true, because 
he dreaded introspective conversations. He took her to 
a picture-show private view in the morning, to Ciro’s 
for luncheon, to a matinee at Daly's and tea at the 
Carlton , returning to Kingsburgh just in time to snatch a 
hurried dinner before he had to fly back to town for his 
engagement with Grace. 

Except the picture-show, which they had included to 
fill up the time, Hestia had enjoyed their day immensely. 
Ciro’s and the Carlton and Daly's were the sort of back- 
ground which she liked for her days — they supplied the 
life and bustle and colour for which she craved, which 
in her Chelsea days she had found in Crosby Hall dances 
and Soho restaurants. And Roger did these things so 
well. He did not know what economy meant, poor dear, 


A. Letter from Grace 


178 


having had that three hundred a year for pocket-money, 
and all expenses paid, ever since he came of age — half-way 
through his Oxford career. Roger’s solicitude for her 
enjoyment had filled her with a sense of pride and well- 
being. It was a kind of caress in its way. 

So content was she that it was she more than he who 
kept an eye on the time for the train which was to take 
him up to London to meet Grace. Roger was haphazard 
in such matters ; except where an appointment was 
official, he was very hazy about timing it. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


AN ACT OF GRACE 


ESTIA did not go to the station with him, but the 



m gaiety of her conversation lingered in his mind. 
And in the train, when he had lit his cigarette, he crossed 
his legs and thought at ease. It was only when he got 
out of the tube, into which he had changed at Hammer- 
smith, that he began to think about his meeting with 
Grace, beyond a general feeling of gratification that he 
was going to meet one of his greatest friends again after 
bidding what he thought would be a permanent good-bye 
until his return from France. 

Then he suddenly began to ask himself what line he 
should take if Grace refered to rumours of his increasing 
intimacy with Hestia ; he was not, of course, thinking of 
the latest episode, but of his constant calling at Fleur- 
delys House since Hestia had occupied lodgings there. 
This might have reached Grace’s ears, and if Grace was 
annoyed, she had an uncompromising way of expressing 
it — one which would require great tact in answering, if 
he answered at all. But he was not sure that he would, 
for Grace’s dismissal of him, as he took it to be, must 
surely deprive her of the right of criticizing his actions, 
which she had exercised ever since they were children 
on account of the footing on which they stood. He would 
not let her dictate to him about Hestia, he resolved. If 
there was any rivalry, Hestia should come first, because 
she had behaved best. 

While he was framing the conditions of peace in his 


174 


An Act of Grace 


175 


mind, he found himself outside No. 40, New Bedford 
Place. He rang the bell and asked, “ Have Mr. and Miss 
Lorraine arrived ? " 

“ Yes, sir." 

" Then will you tell Miss Lorraine that I am here — 
Mr. Wynyard ? " 

“ She expects you, sir," said the girl, leading the way 
to the small room, intended for a pantry, at the head of 
the kitchen stairs, which Madame Barbensi had con- 
verted into a little sitting-room and office for herself. 

There he found Grace, alone, Mr. Lorraine having gone 
off to see Mr. Skewen at the First Avenue Hotel that 
evening, instead of waiting to see him on the following 
day, because his meeting with the insurance company's 
solicitors was so early. 

Grace had been bitterly hurt when he had parted from 
her with one steady kiss and handshake and those brief 
words. It was the shock of that parting which had made 
her realize what Roger meant to her, and drove her into 
writing that letter, when he had sent the telegram to his 
mother announcing the postponement of his departure. 

She did not allude to it when they met, and received 
him in an unusually feminine and gracious mood. She 
was holding the lapels of his coat, as she used to when 
he was a boy at school, if she had something particular 
to say to him. 

This might be so much to the good, thought the 
bewildered Roger. In this mood she was unlikely to 
ask him disagreeable and unanswerable questions. 

But this time, while she held him thus, there was no 
long talk ; she did not at first say a word ; she only looked 
at him with affection in those lovely eyes, so blue that 
they were almost violet, so clear that they seemed wells 
of intelligence and calm wisdom. 

All his life Roger had been ruled by those calm eyes, 
so childlike in their transparency, so searching in their 
judgment. Now, instead of questioning or judging, they 
seemed to have a message. Already her mesmerism over 
Roger was re-established. It was for her to speak. 

He grew shamefaced under her gaze. Every day in 


176 


Grace Lorraine 


the time, which had passed since they had parted, accused 
him, and there was one moment at which he burned with 
shame under the silent arraignment. 

As Grace stood before him, he recognized what a great 
gulf there was, to use the fine expression of the Book of 
the Revelation, between her and Hestia. Hestia was 
lovely and sweet, and, in spite of her fall, a good woman, 
because she was so good-hearted. But she had graduated, 
as it were, in Chelsea, and was a Bohemian unashamed. 
Grace was a Diana — a Diana who had not yet met an 
Endymion. She had no past ; she had never thought 
of Comus and his rout, or Venus and her doves. Her 
mind was filled with virgin thoughts now of sport, now 
of study and Art. Grace, for all her splendid woman- 
hood, was barely grown up at heart. 

And Roger was on her side of the gulf, not Hestias. 
Once in a way, it is true, he loved going to a musical- 
comedy and dining at a gay restaurant. He was a great 
patron of the Gaiety and Daly’s when he was in town, and 
he loved the glitter of the Savoy and the Carlton and Giro’s. 
But, left to himself, he would never stay in town a week. 
Of his own free will he spent most of the year in his own 
home. It was only when Grace lectured him into it that 
he stayed in his chambers in the Temple and “ ate his 
dinners " — as if any lawyer in his right senses would ever 
give Roger a brief ! 

Roger, whose mind was so taken up with sport, ought 
always to have been in the Army. In our Army, in the 
times of peace, sport was recognized as the serious business 
of the officers, who filled in their time with a little drill, 
and raising the tone of the men committed to their charge. 
This would have suited Roger exactly, and he would 
have won universal respect in his Regiment or Battery, 
in a country station where there was plenty of sport 
going. 

Unfortunately, his mother, who had only seen the smart 
and dissipated side of Army life, dreaded its pitfalls for 
the easy-going Roger, and dissuaded him from it. 

Such was the man confronted by Diana. In her 
presence once more he was struck with the difference of 


An Act of Grace 


177 


type between her and women such as Hestia. Grace, as 
she stood before Roger, was unconscious of sex as Hestia 
could not have been. That did not enter into the 
momentous decision she was taking. She was a veritable 
Diana as she stood there, tall and physically perfect, 
exquisitely graceful, with the glittering, pale golden hair 
which the Ancients loved to attribute to the sister of 
Apollo, a face so exquisitely fair that it would flame if 
blushes were ever called to it, and features whose fine 
chiselling bespoke refinement as clearly as they bespoke 
good family. 

“ Roger,” she said, “ I sent for you to tell you that 
I have changed my mind.” She took it for granted 
that he had not changed his, that he was ready to repeat 
the offer which he had been making in season and out of 
season, following the Apostolic precept, for five years past. 

For a moment, remembering his offence, he was smitten 
with dismay. How was he to accept this honour, which 
had been the desire of his life, from his Queen, when he 
had committed treason ? Once more he listened to the 
voice of the tempter. Might he not, when he was on 
the eve of facing death, allow himself this joy and glory 
for a day ? — if only he could do it without being a cad 
to Hestia l It must be so long before he came back, if 
ever he came back (the “ if ” about it suggested no terrors 
to his courageous, happy-go-lucky mind), and it was such 
a gift of the gods that Grace, the unattainable, was at 
length giving him her promise that she would be his wife 
when the war was over. 

But what to say he could not think. Roger was no 
casuist in words, whatever he might be to his conscience. 
At last, seeing her pain at his silence, he murmured, “ Oh, 
Grace ! ” There was no need for him to counterfeit 
emotion. 

She was glad that he did not try to fold her in his arms, 
or overwhelm her with kisses, as she had feared. He 
was aching to — Heaven knew how much — but could 
not until he had settled with his soul. Her hope was that 
he should approach this, the most serious moment of 
their lives, with the calmness and deliberation which it 


12 


178 


Grace Lorraine 


deserved. She kept her hold on his coat lapels warily, 
ready to avoid him lightly, as the Arthurian knights eluded 
the enemy in their tournaments, should he show any 
sign of advances. Roger, dumbfounded by the turn 
which events had taken, was relieved by the impractica- 
bility of making them. 

“ I sent for you,” she said, “ to tell you that I had 
changed my mind about our marriage. I will marry 
you, and, as I don’t believe in long engagements, I am going 
to marry you before you go. Be a good boy — don't 
worry me. Sit down beside me quietly, while we talk 
things out ; they are very difficult.” 

Roger obeyed. If things were going to be difficult 
for her, they were going to be a hundredfold more difficult 
for him. He was willing to do anything to gain time. 

Grace seated herself on the sofa. Roger was going 
to pull up the one chair, but she drew in her skirts to make 
room for him. He seated himself beside her with one of 
his sincere smiles. 

He was absolutely sincere in his love for her, and his 
desire to be her husband. His one doubt was if honour 
would permit it. Was it just to Hestia to accept this 
gift from Grace ? Was it anything but vilely dishonour- 
able to accept it from Grace until he had confessed every- 
thing, except Hestia s name, to her ? His code said, in 
no equivocal voice, “You must not let Hestia forgive it 
even if she were willing ; you must not listen to Grace 
until you have confessed.” But the tempter said, “ Let 
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” 

“ Now, Roger,” she said, “if we are going to 
marry ...” 

Roger, who had said nothing to show his assent, could 
see no answer. His only chance was to let Grace talk on, 
to give him time to think. 

She was astonished and hurt that he gave no answer, 
but believing him to be still bruised by their last encounter, 
and not yet able to forgive it, proceeded : 

“If we are going to marry before you go, we ought to 
do it to-morrow.” 

To-morrow ! Roger almost started from the sofa. 


An Act of Grace 


179 


Yet, if they were to be married before he went, common 
sense and natural instincts said marry as soon as possible. 

Grace was feeling more and more hurt. She had 
pictured Roger pouring out his whole heart to her in 
impetuous school-boy fashion. The rift must have been 
deeper than she thought. Still she proceeded. 

Roger was to go and get a license as soon as the office 
opened at io a.m., and they were to be married some 
time in the afternoon, early enough to do the train 
journey to wherever they were going. 

Roger, who had been able to tell his mother such a 
few hours before that he had never told a lie to save his 
skin, fell from the high standard of truth once more. He 
told Grace what was true — that there could be no ques- 
tion of a train journey, as he was confined to the London 
district in order to be available at once, if his sailing 
orders were suddenly altered. And he supplemented this 
by a flat lie : he would not be able, he said, to leave 
Kingsburgh itself, until after five o’clock. He left Grace 
to imagine that by Kingsburgh he meant the camp, and 
she pictured him doing uninteresting drills and inspections 
and reports while he was longing to be with her. 

And the cruel irony of the situation was that he was 
burning to be with her, burning to have the marriage 
performed at the earliest moment possible, hungering 
and thirsting for her to be his, at the very minute that he 
was lying to postpone it. 

“ Will you be kept there as strictly when we are 
married ? ” asked Grace, almost weeping with 
mortification. 

“No, I shall tell the Adjutant, and get ‘ leave off ’ till 
we sail. I can’t get the regulation about staying in the 
London district altered. But Cobb, another of our chaps 
who has just made a war-marriage — that’s what we call 
it, if a chap gets married in a hurry when the Regiment 
is under orders to sail — has got leave off all duties till the 
night before we start, so I should have the same.’’ 

Grace was following what he said with such painful 
interest that he thought she must be sure to see from 
his face how ashamed he was. For all of this except one 

12 * 


180 


Grace Lorraine 


iota was a lie. He already had exactly the same leave as 
Cobb had, but he had no other excuse to offer for not 
proceeding to procure the marriage license in the morning, 
as she had requested, and, even if the sky fell, nothing 
would induce him to take the irrevocable step of marriage 
until he had seen Hestia, and received her assent. 

This he was in honour bound to do. He dared not ask 
himself if honour would let him accept the assent, for he 
knew what the answer would be, and if Hestia assented 
he meant to take the gift. 

The truly honourable thing to do would have been to 
make a clean breast of it to Grace, not, of course, giving 
the name of the woman whom he had injured. But now 
that the wish of his heart — marriage with Grace — was 
within his grasp, he clung desperately to the idea that 
if he did not commit himself, he might find a way out 
somehow, both to save his honour and win his heart’s 
desire. 

Grace waited for him to proceed. He was a long time 
coming to the point, but she had no suspicion of any let 
or hindrance, beyond the one she knew, for Roger was 
not quick in grasping a fresh idea. 

“ I could go the day after to-morrow, when I’ve got 
leave, to that place, and get the license the minute it 
opens," he said. 

“ And we might get married directly afterwards. We 
should not be losing many hours in that way." 

“ No, we shouldn’t," admitted Roger, unable this 
time to keep the eagerness out of his voice. In thirty- 
six hours, if Hestia and honour did not say him nay, the 
desire of his life might be fulfilled and he might be Grace’s 
husband ; he might know the ineffable happiness of 
having Grace for his wife before he went to battle. 

Grace caught that note of eagerness ; it was like balm 
to her wounded soul. 

But as he said it he realized the wrong of what he was 
saying. He was conniving in the whole thing being 
treated as settled, though he could not see how under 
heaven it was to be done. It would only be human 
for Hestia to give a verdict which would be as irrevocable 


An Act of Grace 


181 


as the crack of doom, as far as marriage for him was 
concerned. And if Hestia assented, would honour hold 
its peace ? But to have any chance of the realization of 
his desires there was only one way — to let Grace go ahead 
without hindrance, and then, if the worst came to the 
worst, he must go through the awful humiliation of telling 
her why the marriage could not take place. 

“ Very well, Roger," said Grace, still, in spite of that 
one note of eagerness, bitterly hurt at the flatness with 
which everything had fallen. “ We’ll put our marriage 
off till Thursday. Well be at the office when it opens 
on Thursday morning, and as soon as we’ve got the 
license we’ll go and get married. And oh, Roger," she 
added, with the deepest concern, “ I suppose we can’t 
get married in a church, can we, with a license of this 
kind ? Isn’t it hateful having to do it in this way ? " 

“ I don’t know," said Roger, with a touch of his old 
self, “ I've never been married before. I could ask the 
man who sells the license." 

“Oh, Roger, I promise to love you twice as much if 
we could ! " cried Grace. It was the worst blow of all 
to her pride that the last of her race should be married 
in a vulgar registry office, in addition to the marriage 
being such a snatched affair. 

The way she worded it, the change in the tone of her 
voice, showed that it was not her love which had been 
hurt, by his indifference, but her pride. He was under 
no illusions as to why she was marrying him. It was 
not because she loved him ; he knew that she did not 
love him in the full sense of the word, but because he 
loved her, and she wished to give her friend of friends 
the- consolation of achieving the desire of his life at the 
eleventh hour. 

Presently Roger — going back to the lighter tone to 
conceal his feelings— said, “ Both things might be easier 
to manage if your father came too. His presence would 
show the licensing Johnnie that it was O.K. ; and if the 
law allows a parson to do the trick, we should be more 
likely to catch one who was willing if your father was 
there to give you away." 


182 


Grace Lorraine 


“ He means to come, I’m sure,” said Grace. 

“ Of course you have told him all about it ? ” said 
Roger, still in the lighter mood, and wondering if she 
had had the nerve to do it. 

“ Of course, and he told me that it had always been 
his dearest wish, but he said that it made him bankrupt 
over again, because he had wanted so to leave you a rich 
man.” 

“ Dear old Uncle Henry ! ” said Roger, recalling his 
childhood’s name for Mr. Lorraine. 

“ Where are we going when we are married, Roger ? ” 
said Grace, pursuing the subject in her practical way. 

“ The Dormy House at Sunningdale if they’ll let me 
go as far.” It was the most out-of-the-way place he 
could think of in the London district. 

“ Sunningdale ! Oh, how deliciously like you, Roger ! ” 
cried Grace, who had recovered her spirits, now that 
she had read the desire which underlay Roger’s hesitation. 
“ But you won’t get leave for that.” 

“ Well, then, Kensington. No one ever goes there 
except to live there.” 

“ But why do you want a place without any people ? ” 

“ I thought that was the idea of a honeymoon.” 

“ Perhaps it is,” said Grace, trying to make Roger’s 
description fit in with the saying that Kensington is 
London’s best bedroom. 

Roger was not so inadvertent as she imagined in 
suggesting these places. He had an eye on chance 
meetings which might be embarrassing, if this amazing 
marriage came off. 

A wild longing to show his real feelings suddenly seized 
him. Grace, the love of his life, whose pride was part of 
her beauty, whom all the men who had ever been thrown 
into contact with her had coveted as a wife, was seated 
beside him, arranging for their marriage before they were 
forty-eight hours older, and nothing could hinder it but 
what he had done himself, done since he had seen her 
last — either by its being brought to her ears, or by its 
making it impossible for him to accede. 

Surely if she was so ready to marry him, that caution, 


An Act of Grace 


183 


“ Sit down beside me quietly while we talk things out/* 
must be withdrawn now ? But she gave no sign, and he 
was still by honour bound. He heaved an inward sigh. 

Each was puzzled by the other. Roger, who knew 
the love-light in a woman’s eyes only too well, was struck 
by Grace’s impassivity. She seemed to be marrying 
him as a duty — possibly as a sacrifice to her country. 
Grace had expected Roger to be overwhelming in his 
gratitude, to be almost pathetically a lover. But he 
had been stunned and tongue-tied. She was astonished 
that his flare-up at Via Pacis on the last night had affected 
him so strongly. He had been her devoted slave for 
years. 

A man like Mr. Ebbutt might have failed to reciprocate 
because he was dumbfounded by her having swung right 
round after refusing him so many times. But this was 
not Roger’s way. 

That he had not opposed her astonished him most of 
all. By all rights he ought to have done so, but he was 
afraid lest, if he lifted up one finger against it, the vision 
of delight might pass for ever. 

When Roger rose to go he had given Grace no promise 
in return for her proclamation. Did she not notice it, 
or not require it ? He had managed to avoid it by 
echoing what she said, and saying what he could, instead 
of what he would, do. Alas ! Truth was at the bottom 
of the well as far as he was concerned. He was satisfied 
if he could avoid direct lies now. 

He was anxious, if it had been possible without risking 
explanations which he dared not face, to convey to Grace 
his passionate desire to marry her, if only a merciful 
Heaven would save him from the consequences of the act 
which he had committed. And he was as anxious to avoid 
saying what might be turned into a positive lie, if the 
wrong which he had done Hestia made it impossible for 
him to marry. 

It was a sorry predicament for a straight and chivalrous 
man like Roger to find himself in. It had come to this : 
that he could not look either Grace or Hestia or his mother 
in the face. 


184 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I suppose I shall see you to-morrow, Roger ? ” said 
Grace, as he was leaving. 

“ I’m not sure that I shall be able to get up from Kings- 
burgh, but if I can manage it, I’ll ’phone. I suppose Mrs. 
Thing has a ’phone, hasn’t she ? ” 

“ Madame Barbensi ? Yes, I find that she has.” 

“ Well, if I can’t come, I might come to breakfast with 
you on Thursday morning. Do you still breakfast at 
half -past eight ? ” 

“ Dad does, and I shall on Thursday morning, because 
it’s so serious to think that one is going to be married 
the day after to-morrow, and not know until the very 
morning when or where one’s wedding is to be.” 

She was the matter-of-fact Grace once more, facing 
serenely a new form of manage de convenance. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


THE LOVE OF WOMAN WHICH PASSETH ALL 
UNDERSTANDING 

H ESTIA had her breakfast at eight — as great a 
novelty as the millennium for her — and came 
down to it, instead of taking it in bed, and dressed with 
extreme care for it. 

Had not Roger said that he would run in early to tell 
her the sequel of that enigmatic summons ? 

When she got down and picked up the Daily Mirror , 
the paper on which she depended exclusively for the 
happenings of the universe, the first thing which she 
saw in it was her husband’s portrait — “ Mr. Christopher 
Cadbury, the eminent comedian, who had a miraculous 
escape in Sunday night's Zeppelin raid.” 

How nearly she had been free ! — free to marry the man 
of her heart, the man whose coveted addresses she had 
just refused, the man whose wife she had been during the 
joys and fears of that terrible night ! 

She had finished her breakfast by half-past eight, 
and every minute until Roger came seemed an hour. 

Roger knew that she was not an early riser, and he 
had no appetite for the task before him. He telephoned 
to the Adjutant and ascertained that there had been no 
change in the sailing orders, and skimmed all the hotel 
papers before he walked round to break the news to her 
in words, which he had been framing in the watches of 
the night. 

He, too, had noticed Cadbury's escape. Cadbury, 
who, one paper had said, had been standing in the window 
of the^ wrecked club, deriding the idea of danger with 

185 


186 


Grace Lorraine 


coarse blasphemy, when the explosion happened, and in 
some miraculous way had escaped uninjured. 

He felt even grateful to Cadbury — Cadbury, for whose 
blood he had thirsted not ninety hours earlier, for with the 
obstacles in its way increasing it, his desire to marry 
Grace had grown to a passion now, and if Cadbury had 
died, he must have married Hestia. Even Cadbury played 
his part in the dispensations of Providence. 

Hestia was at the window, waiting for him. How 
radiant and smiling she was as she beckoned him in ! In 
so short a passage as from the front door to her sitting- 
room on the ground-floor he had a spasm of remorse. 

No sooner had the door closed than she almost flung 
herself into his arms, in her exultation. But noticing 
how tired and worried he looked, changed her mood, to 
the sympathetic gentleness of a wife. 

“ Well, dear, did she want you for anything particular ? ” 
she asked cheerily, although, or perhaps because, she saw 
that he looked so tired and worried. 

Tired as well as worried he was, because he had not 
slept all night. Fate was dragging him down like that 
gigantic Cephalopod in Seacombe Harbour. The waters 
of shame lay deep above his head, and once more it was 
for the sake of Grace Lorraine that he had plunged into 
the depths. But for her he could have given Hestia 
the life-long worship which he owed her since he could 
not marry her. But now, when he believed Grace lost 
for ever, she had suddenly reappeared, offering him the 
prize which ever since he was a child had hung just out 
of his reach like the bough of Tantalus. 

Having washed his hands of Grace, and given a hostage 
to Hestia, honour in no uncertain accents bade him refuse 
the prize, and redeem the hostage. But he knew, that if 
he did, he would regret it with a fierce rfegret, all his life. 

For apart from all the difficulties, which might be 
smoothed over by Hestia’s passion for Roger, there was 
the great elemental fact that he had given his heart to 
Grace at a time when her reciprocation had seemed hope- 
less, and that the impossible had happened in the shape 
of her determining that it was her duty to marry him; 


The Love of Woman 


187 


All night long Roger had been torn between the two 
poles — the pole of honour and the pole of selfish instincts. 
He was conscious all through that if he had been told six 
months ago that he could have hesitated, he would not 
have believed it possible. 

The code of which he had been so proud ever since he 
became a Public School boy, the code of which he had 
been such an eminent exponent, did not leave him in 
doubt for a moment as to what he ought to do if he was 
to retain his respect in his own eyes. But for the first 
time he found himself listening to the suaver voice which 
is within us, instead of to the still, small voice of con- 
science. The suave voice talked to him of happiness ; 
the question of the greater happiness of the greater 
number was too wide a subject to be within Roger’s focus, 
but the smaller question of happiness being the prime 
object of an uncertain existence, whose end is so wrapped 
in mystery that we do not know why we exist, was 
beginning to present itself to Roger. He knew that the 
individual’s happiness, like all other rights of the indi- 
vidual, must be limited by the rights of others. But the 
suave voice, the Mephistopheles within us, asked, would 
the sacrifice of his happiness bestow on Hestia anything 
like what the sacrifice cost him ? Was it worth it ? in 
other words. 

Then he would scourge himself with contempt for 
harbouring such vile thoughts a single instant. When 
he had abased himself to the lowest depths as he tossed 
and thought, he made laughter for fiends by going to 
the other extreme and picturing to himself the feast of 
happiness which he would fling to the winds if he listened 
to the dictates of honour. 

And when the long night of vigil was over, he had no 
clear purpose in his mind. He knew what he ought to 
do, and hoped that some stroke of fortune would prevent 
his doing it. 

It was this Roger who presented himself to Hestia on 
that fourth day of the week in the morning. 

“ Well, dear, did she want you for anything in 
particular ? ” Hestia had asked. 


188 


Grace Lorraine 


How was he to tell her, when Grace’s object in coming 
to town struck so directly at the roots of her happiness ? 
Was it more merciful to tell the truth or to try and spare 
her ? 

Either he was less afraid of losing her than he was of 
losing Grace, or he was less in awe of her, or he was more 
in sympathy with her than he was with Grace, for he rose 
to the heights of being honest again. 

“ She came to tell me a thing which affects us all,” 
he said. “ She proposes to marry me before I go to 
France.” 

“ And what did you say, Roger ? ” she asked, bravely 
repressing her feelings until she knew what Love required 
of her. 

“ Oh, I temporized like a weak coward ! ” 

“You pretended that you were going to marry her ? ” 
“Not exactly that. I let her say what she had to 
say without interrupting her, and appeared to agree 
with her, and when she talked about licenses and whether 
we could get a clergyman to marry us in a church, I 
entered into the discussion in an abstract way, as if . . .” 
“ As if you had made up your mind to marry her ? ” 
“Yes,” he said steadily. “I am sure that she did 
have that impression.” 

“ And didn’t you think of me, Roger ? ” 

“ Indeed I did, and that was where half of my miserable 
hypocrisy came in ! ” 

“ How ? ” 

“ I did not once say that I would marry her. I allowed 
her to take it for settled. I echoed what she said. I was 
a thorough-paced hypocrite.” 

“ But how does this affect me ? ” 

“ It was because I belong to you — I am not a free agent. 
I had not the power to promise.” 

“ Then why did you deceive her by pretending to 
acquiesce, and by discussing a lot of things which you 
did not mean to do ? ” 

“ I cannot tell you this, Hestia ! ” 

“ Why not ? Are we not the greatest friends that any 
people in the world could be ? ” 


The Love of Woman 


189 


“ I cannot tell you, but you know.” 

“Yes, I know. You did not wish to burn your boats 
with her. You wished to keep in with us both, in the 
hope that something might turn up to relieve you from 
making a decision so painful to your generous nature.” 

“ I am afraid so.” 

“ And she spoiled the possibility by insisting on being 
married to-day, or perhaps to-morrow.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Oh, my poor Roger, what a calamity it is to be caught 
between the upper and the nether millstone ! ” 

“You are talking rather over my head, dear, but I 
think I know what you must mean.” 

Hestia did not speak for a few minutes, but various 
signs showed the struggle which was going on within her 
more eloquently than many words, for her eyes, and the 
silent movings of her mouth, told the truth, whereas 
words might merely have been used to conceal thought. 

At length she said, “Tell me truly, Roger, or I shall 
never forgive you — tell me, as you hope for heaven, or 
love your life, or whatever oath is most binding on you : 
Do you want to marry Grace ? ” 

This was the severest test of the truth to which Roger 
had ever been put. He had kept his promise to his 
mother as regards physical pain — that he would never 
tell a lie because he was afraid. But here was a new test. 
To tell the truth now would be a breach of the Public 
School boys’ code ; it was sneaking. 

Hestia saw his hesitation. “ You're not going to play 
fair ! Remember that your life-long happiness depends 
on your telling the truth.” 

He was still silent. 

And then Hestia told a lie in her turn. 

“ If you don’t marry her, I shall have to let my husband 
get a divorce so that you may marry me. I can’t leave 
you solitary. And think how unhappy you will make 
my life, if you marry me, while all the time you are dying 
to marry Grace.” 

As he hesitated still she said, “You are too generous 
to put it into words, and I thank Heaven that you have 


190 


Grace Lorraine 


come out the chivalrous gentleman that I pictured you, 
but your silence has told me more sincerely, I think, 
than you would have had the cruelty to put into words, 
that you would give the world, except my feelings, to 
marry Grace. You can marry her with all my goodwill.” 

“ Oh, Hestia, how ever can I thank you ! ” he blurted out. 

“You have nothing to thank me for. It was for my 
sake, not for yours, that I let you make love to me. You 
have given me more gratification than any lover I ever 
had. And you have done me the honour of taking me 
seriously and falling in love with me, while I was only 
amusing myself with you. You were so deliciously fresh, 
my Roger ! 

“ As the fiance and husband of Grace you must not 
think of me any more, except as a devoted friend, who 
will always have your happiness — the happiness of both 
of you — at her heart.” 

“ I shall never forget how I have wronged you, dearest 
Hestia ! ” 

“ Tush ! You haven’t wronged me — you were the 
victim of my Circean wiles. I shall tell Grace so if any 
villain ever brings the story to her ears. It is nothing that, 
if I have many lovers before I die, I shall never love 
any so well as you. Go to Grace to-morrow with a clean 
heart, knowing that I would not marry you if you asked 
me, and I were free.” 

“ This is pure self-sacrifice, Hestia. I don’t know why 
you say it.” 

“ Indeed it is not, Roger. When I marry again, I must 
marry a man who has no locked chamber in his heart.” 

“ Hestia, I will not deceive you. You don’t know what 
a load you have lifted off my feelings by telling me to 
marry Grace with your goodwill. I did want to marry her 
desperately, but I could not do it unless you forgave me.” 

“ It was dear of you to look at it like that, but as I 
have explained to you, I have nothing to forgive, if I was 
amusing myself.” 

“ The debt exists, Hestia.” 

“ Well, pay it off by doing something for me. Go for 
a walk with me from now till dark. I am a good walker — 


The Love of Woman 


191 


I used to go long tramps on a Sunday in my Chelsea days. 
We will stop and have bread and cheese and beer some- 
where for our lunch. But we’ll spend all the rest of the 
time walking, for while we are walking we shall think of 
all sorts of things which we have to say to each other, and 
if we are walking in the winter mud of Surrey we shan't 
be able to get too sentimental over them." 

“ Right you are ! I’d love a long tramp." 

"You see, you mustn't come here to-night, or I might 
feel inclined to amuse myself again by pretending to be 
sentimental. I think you ought to go and call on Grace 
to-night." 

"No," said Roger, " I shall pass the evening in my 
own room at the hotel, thinking of you both, remembering 
all the good of you, and how little I deserve either." 

The walk supplied him with enough to think of. When 
they left Kingsburgh they went swinging across the Park 
to the other Royal borough of Kingston, with its group 
of ancient houses round the market-place, modern 
Surbiton and old-time Esher, to a little public-house on 
the Thames, where men rowing down from Oxford to 
Chelsea, as Roger once did with a friend, while (unbeknown 
to him) Hestia (who was to bring a torch into his life) 
was there in her heyday before her marriage, put up for 
the night. 

The day was bright and warm, though it was January, 
and Roger, dreading sentiment if he were within four 
walls with Hestia, ordered their bread and cheese on the 
lawn sloping down to the river. Damp grass made no 
difference to Hestia, he knew. 

The air had been frosty when they started, just the 
atmosphere to stimulate such a pair, trying to remember 
all they had to remember before Roger crossed one 
channel to the " faery lands forlorn " of matrimony, and 
the other to the foughten fields of France. It was tempera- 
mental to both of them only to remember the happy 
incidents in the years in which they had known each 
other, including that momentous struggle with the 
octopus, when Roger and Grace would have joined the 
Past but for Hestia's promptness in running for the 


192 


Grace Lorraine 


lifeboat-men. Both of them remembered simultaneously 
Grace's saying that she hoped that Hestia had not saved 
them to her own undoing. In one breath they exclaimed : 

“ Do you remember what Grace said ? " 

“ I'm afraid that it was true,” added Roger. 

“ It wasn’t — I should have gone without some of the 
happiest moments of my life if you had perished then,” 
said Hestia stoutly. 

“ It’s very sweet and sporting of you to say so, Hestia.” 

“ I do say so. I don’t regret anything that has passed. 

I only regret that you are not mine.” 

“ Then I won’t marry Grace ! ” 

“ Rats ! You must. You’re not mine — that’s the 
reason why I am giving you up. Do you think that if 
you were mine, that if you longed to go through life with 
me, as you long to go through it with her now, I would 
give you up so tamely ? Not I ! Not if I had to be 
burnt at Southampton for it ! But since you are hers 
in love, and mine only in friendship, why should I kick 
against the pricks ? ” 

“ Only a big nature like yours could look at it that 
way, Hestia.” 

“ There is not really anything big about me, Roger, 
except my heart.” 

She saw that he was about to say something. 

“Not in the way in which you mean, you dear en- 
thusiastic boy. I’m talking about my pluck. I deter- 
mined to make the best of everything — to take happiness 
where I found it, and to harness events and drive them 
my way. And therefore I’ve had nothing but happiness 
from your friendship, though it will soon be ‘ back with the 
Reserves,’ as you soldiers would say.” 

“ Do we ? I’m too young a soldier to know.” 

“ Mr. Sylvester, who was at Oxford when Haig was 
there, says so,” answered Hestia, with mock gravity, 
manufacturing an old lady’s argument. 

“ That settles it,” said Roger, laughing. He thought 
she was serious. 

She turned serious when she said, “ But one thing I 
want you to promise me, Roger. If ever what has passed 


The Love of Woman 


193 


between us comes to Grace’s ears, though it only could come 
through some witness whom we have not recognized, you 
must tell her that I thought you had passed from her life 
when I took you into mine, and that when I learned that 
you were still hers, I sent you back to her of my own 
free will.” 

“ Indeed I will, Hestia. No one shall ever say a bad 
word of you in my hearing unchallenged by me.” 

“ Oh, you needn’t run tilts on my behalf, Roger, except 
with Grace. It might bring about the catastrophe which 
I hope you will escape. But if she opens the question, 
let her know that I have not been her enemy, but her 
friend.” 

By the time that luncheon was over, and they were 
on their homeward trudge, they were back to happier 
times. But that night searched both their hearts. 

Roger was committing the supreme foolishness of 
writing (and he was the merest schoolboy at composition) 
his confession of her nobility to Hestia. Himself he could 
only see in the basest light. With a want of humour 
which brought a smile to her sad face when she read it, 
he promised her that he would repent. And Hestia was 
a very sad woman. She passed a night of weeping. She 
was giving up the thing she loved best in the world. She 
did it gladly, for all her tears, because she was doing it to 
make the man, to whom she was so devoted, happier. 
If she was forced to immolate herself to do this, what did 
it matter ? Roger’s happiness must come first, what- 
ever else happened, and there was, unfortunately, no 
uncertainty in which direction that lay. She was doing 
this for him, though she would for ever cherish his image 
in her heart, when he was hers by his own code. 

That the misery into which she was plunged, though 
she put such a bold face upon their parting, would last, 
she did not expect. It was not her nature to remain 
in the depths, especially when the triumph of her life, 
professionally, was at hand. She would soon be in a 
gay London whirl, in which she would have no time to 
think — or, at any rate, would only be haunted by the 
image of her soldier-lover in the watches of the night. 

13 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


ANTICIPATION 


HEN Roger got back from his walk in the after- 



vv noon, he telegraphed to Grace that he had got 
leave till Saturday morning ; the Regiment was not 
leaving until Saturday night. She took it to mean no 
more than the words expressed, but he sent it to his con- 
science as much as to her. It was to clear himself of the 
reproach of her receiving as an acceptance what was in 
truth only a subterfuge. 

He also telegraphed to his mother : “ Congratulate me. 
Grace is going to marry me before I leave for France. — 
Roger/' 

She telegraphed back : “ Lieutenant Wynyard, Hotel 
Louis-Philippe, Kingsburgh, Surrey. Best congratulations. 
So happy. — Mater.” 

When Roger reached Kingsburgh Station at seven- 
thirty on the Thursday morning, he was a different man. 
As soon as he had finished the letter to Hestia, which took 
him two or three hours of painful effort, he dismissed his 
cares in his wonted way, and went to bed, after writing his 
name on the Boots’ slate to be called at half-past six. 

His head had only been on the pillow for a few minutes 
before he was fast asleep, making up for the vigils of the 
previous night, and he slept on till he heard the Boots’ 
knock, and sprang out of bed to run to his dug-out, because 
the knock had started the dream that he was in the firing- 
line in France, and that the enemy gunners had locate4 
him, and shells were bursting all round. 


194 


Anticipation 195 

Finding that it was only a hot-water attack, he turned 
on the electric-light, and proceeded to shave, and found 
himself at the station with the largest margin of time for 
taking his ticket which he had achieved since he came to 
Kingsburgh. 

He did not smoke in either the Underground or the 
Tube, and he walked as if he had wings from Russell Square 
to New Bedford Place. He was there so early that break- 
fast was not ready, but almost immediately after the servant 
had shown him into the breakfast-room and closed the 
door, he heard the rustle of a lady’s skirts — it was not the 
servant, he was sure — and saw the door opening again. 

A thrill went through him. It must be Grace, who would 
be his wife before many hours were over, coming to welcome 
him on that last morning of her maidenhood. 

But when the door was thrown back, there entered not 
Grace, but his mother. 

“ Mater ! ” he cried, with double the delight which 
Grace’s apparition could have caused, and as soon as he 
had embraced her, he added, “ How on earth did you get 
here ? ” 

“ By train, dear — we have no Zeppelin service at 
present.” 

“ I know that, you darling, but I want to know how you 
managed to get a train that landed you here so un- 
expectedly ? ” 

“ I came by the very same train that you did. The 
very same Mr. Ebbutt motored me to the station, and I 
had nearly six hours after I received your telegram for 
packing my modest luggage, so you see that I have not 
achieved anything very wonderful.” 

“ The wonder is your being here.” 

“ And where else should I be, on my son’s wedding- 
morning ? ” 

“ It was ripping of you to come ! How smart you look ! ” 
he said, turning her round admiringly. 

She was, in fact, a very elegant woman, who had pre- 
served her good looks so well that she looked more like 
Roger’s sister than his mother. She did not, now that she 
was vegetating in a parsonage, allow herself to forget the 

13 * 


196 


Grace Lorraine 


days when she had made her debut in London as an Earl’s 
daughter, and had been the beauty of the Viceregal Court. 

“ So Grace is going to marry you, after all ! And before 
you start, Roger ! What made her change her mind ? ” 

" Haven’t you seen her yet, Mater ? ” 

“ No, she isn’t down yet.” 

" Oh, I know what I meant to ask you ! ” interrupted 
Roger. “ How did you find your way here ? How did 
you know where to come to ? How did you get the 
address ? ” 

“ Very simply. They gave it to me themselves, to see 
that their letters were forwarded to them.” 

“ So you forwarded yourself when you got my 
telegram ? ” 

“ Exactly.” 

“ Well, it’s the nicest thing you have ever done in your 
life, Mater, and you’ve done a good many.” 

At that moment Grace came in, and embraced the 
mother-in-law-elect, who had been a mother to her, with 
great affection. 

“ They told me that you were here,” she said. " It was 
lovely of you to come. I was in my bath when you 
arrived, or you would have seen an apparition.” 

“ I got your telegram,” she said, as she bestowed a 
sedate, ungrudging, wifely kiss on Roger. " It was 
a good thing you could not come. I had so many letters 
to write for dad about the meeting. ... I hear dad himself 
coming now.” 

Mr. Lorraine appeared, looking as if he had never had a 
care, though he had had a difficult meeting with the lawyers, 
taking up the greater part of the day before. He was 
just going to greet Roger, when his eye fell upon Lady 
Cynthia.” 

“ How delightful of you to come, my dear Cynthia ! 
Did you get a letter from Grace telling you about the 
marriage ? She ran out and posted it herself on Monday 
night.” 

“ No, it was Roger’s wire which brought me.” 

“ What a mercy that he telegraphed, or you would 
not have known anything about it until it was a fait 


Anticipation 197 

accompli, and I wouldn’t for the world have had that 
happen ! ” 

Mr. Lorraine had old-fashioned ideas of courtesy, and 
would never have forgiven himself for a breach of them. 

“ And how are you, my son ? ” he said, turning to Roger. 
“ Your being up in such good time for your marriage is a 
good augury for your wedded happiness ! ” 

“ What a lovely gown you have on, Grace ! ” said Lady 
Cynthia, fingering the fine cream moleskin of the coat and 
skirt with a well-bred woman’s delight in a beautiful 
fabric, and inwardly thinking how sensible it was of Grace 
not to have bought a wedding-dress out of her present 
income. 

“ It’s a new one which my dressmaker sent home after 
the smash came, so I never wore it. It was so out of 
keeping for a pauper — two of these would eat up nearly 
our whole income nowadays. So, since one must be 
married in a shade of white, and must be married in a new 
thing, I decided to make a wedding-dress of it. It had 
gloves and a hat to match.” 

Whatever its story, she looked absolutely lovely in it : 
it brought before Roger’s eyes the spoiled child of fortune 
with whom he had been over head and ears in love ever 
since he left school. 

A taxi took all four of them to Doctors’ Commons, where, 
the fees being forthcoming, and both bride and bridegroom 
being supported by the sole surviving parent, no opposition 
was raised by the officials, beyond that twenty-four hours 
must elapse before the wedding was carried out, to allow 
time for any contravening circumstances to come to light. 

“ Now that we have got our permit,” said Grace, “ the 
next thing to do is to try and find a Church of England 
clergyman who is willing to marry us.” 

“ His grandfather is in town,” said Lady Cynthia, 
“ staying at the National Club. When I wired to him 
that Roger was going to be married, and I was coming 
up for it, he wired back that I was to ’phone or wire him at 
the club as soon as I knew where the wedding was to take 
place, so that he might be present. He could marry the 
children.” 


198 


Grace Lorraine 


The expression “ ’phone or wire him ” was a dreadful 
vulgarism on such an occasion to Mr. Lorraine, but he said 
nothing. Old-fashioned people sometimes know when to 
hold their peace. 

While the license was being made out, Lady Cynthia 
slipped away and telephoned to her father-in-law to make 
arrangements to marry them on the next day at eleven. 

She read the look of cruel disappointment on her son’s 
face, and the annoyance on Grace’s. Grace still thought 
that the world was made for her, and resented interruptions 
of her plans. 

“ Take Grace back to the lodgings, Roger, and try to 
console her till it is time for you to take her to lunch at 
some nice place. I’m going with Uncle Henry down to 
Winchester by the eleven-thirty train. He has to go over 
St. Cross again before Mr. Ebbutt and he can get on with 
the work at the monastery. We shall be back in time to 
dine out somewhere and go to a theatre. Our train back 
gets in at six.” 

“ Why, Mater,” said the grateful Roger, “ you’ll only 
have about an hour there ! ” 

“ It is all he needs, and there’s a restaurant car on the 
train.” 

Roger obeyed, unconvinced but eternally grateful. 
Grace’s attitude in the taxi was to be the old Grace, Roger’s 
chief companion ever since he was a child. She might 
have been welcoming Roger back from the war, she was 
so glad to see him after their parting. 

The sitting-room which Madame Barbensi had given 
up to them was sufficiently cheerless. It was very small, 
and most of it was taken up by an office-table with a roll- 
over top and very secure locks — a necessity for her accounts 
and cash. There was just room for a chair in front of the 
table, and a hard-hearted lodging-house sofa, on which 
Madame rested after lunch, in front of the fire. 

Roger and Grace took possession of it as if it had been 
the most luxurious sofa at the Carlton. It was their own, 
and they were secure from interruption until the train 
brought their parents back from Winchester. 

Roger, up to this, had not seen Grace alone, except in 


Anticipation 199 

a taxi in broad daylight, since he was freed by Hestia’s 
generosity from the reserve which he had been compelled, 
by the horror of his position, to impose upon himself and 
Grace. 

Would she let him relax that reserve now ? he wondered. 
Or would he suffer the punishment which he felt that 
he deserved ? 

She answered every doubt without a word, by the way 
in which she put her lips to his, when he had closed the 
door, and taken her in his arms to kiss her. 

After her first virginal embarrassment she sat on that 
inhospitable sofa with her soft fair cheek leaning on his 
shoulder, and her glittering hair against his cheek, in perfect 
content. If he could have seen her face, he would have 
noticed that her exquisite mouth was half-opened, and her 
long lashes were drooping over her violet eyes, like a sleepy 
child’s. She was like a child in her happiness. Her sim- 
plicity was her greatest charm. 

Little by little the delighted Roger found that it was 
simplicity which had made her write that letter ; that she 
had suddenly realized that her dearest friend was going 
to the firing-line, from which he might never come back, 
and wished to be his wife, if it was only for a day ; that she 
had no arriere-pensee ; that she craved for honest, down- 
right affection as a child would crave for it. 

And this was the woman who for at least five years past 
had refused one great match after another, and had ruled 
lovers out of her life, partly as a devotee of the open air, 
and partly as a devotee of the higher life, which makes a 
religion of the Arts. 

It was her great simplicity which had made her write 
and speak so abruptly ; which had made her tolerant or 
ignorant of the evasiveness with which he had met her 
proposal until he had found the opportunity of consulting 
with Hestia ; which had made her ignore all the oddnesses 
of his behaviour. She wished to be his wife while there was 
yet time ; she could endure much to achieve it. 

The two hours before lunch flew like the crimson and 
gold of sunset. He was chivalrously delicate in his caresses, 
and she poured out her heart to him. 


200 


Grace Lorraine 


To Grace, after half a year of poverty, it was delightful 
to be taxi-ing and going to a famous restaurant as the 
fiancee of the young giant in khaki beside her. To be with 
an officer at the Savoy in war time as his fiancee is a joy to 
any properly-constituted girl, and Roger already was such 
a typical soldier. 

In spite of Roger’s entreaties, for she was so dazzlingly 
fair in it, she had insisted on changing her dress the moment 
she got in. 

“ I have no other new frock to be married in, and it’s 
so unlucky to be married in an old dress.” 

“ Just as if it could make any difference ! ” he said. “ I 
don’t believe in superstitions ! ” 

“ The waiter might spill something over it,” said Grace 
sagely. “ And I could not be married in a stained dress, 
anyhow.” 

Roger was more frightened of the waiters than he was of 
Fate, so she changed into a gown, hardly less lovely, and 
almost new (though it, too, had been bought in the previous 
spring), which she had brought up for the express purpose 
of going about with him. 

Much as she enjoyed the Savoy and the pretence of being 
rich again, she went back without a murmur to that con- 
verted pantry in Bloomsbury. It was a moment when no 
palace in the world could compare with guaranteed solitude 
in a garret. 

“ Go and sit down while I run to my room and take my 
hat off.” 

“ Can’t you take it off here ? ” 

“ I have to be more careful of my clothes than that, 
nowadays.” 

He went in, and taking off his belts, tossed them down 
on Madame Barbensi’s chair, the only flat surface in the 
room which would be unoccupied when Grace came back. 

Then he seated himself on the sofa, back to the door — 
that was the uncomfortable end — and listened for her 
footsteps. 

She stole in — he had left the door open — and he pre- 
tended not to hear her. She closed the door behind her 
very gently when she saw that he had not looked up. 


Anticipation 201 

and tip-toeing up to the sofa, threw her arms round him. 
He caught her hands fervently, and when he turned his 
head round to meet hers, thought that he had never seen 
anything so beautiful. 

“ Come and sit beside me, you Three Graces rolled into 
one,” he said. 

As she obeyed him she thought of the day when as a 
schoolboy new to Latin he had discovered that her name 
was a title in Roman mythology. 

“ What shall we do after we’re married ? ” he said. 

“ The war’ll have to end before we need think of that.” 

“ No — I mean to-morrow, when the old man has finished 
with us.” 

“ Oh, hush, Roger ! You mustn’t talk of it like that.” 

“ Well, I suppose we shall have to do something ? ” 

“ Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” 

“ I don’t see where the evil comes in.” 

“ I do. It’s quite bad enough that we aren’t married 
already without thinking what troubles to-morrow may 
invent for us.” 

“ Well, I want to think about it, because it’s so lovely — 
I mean the idea of being married to you. I vote we just 
sit indoors — in a better room than this, of course.” 

“ Well, I vote so too. We shall want to have as much as 
we can of each other before you go to France.” 

“ Let’s pretend that this is our last afternoon ? ” he 
suggested. 

“ No, that’s unlucky,” said Grace. “ If you meet 
misfortunes half-way they’ll always come.” 

” Well, be as nice to me as you’ll be on our last day.” 

" Yes, I’ll do that gladly. I want to be as nice as I can 
to you from this minute forward, to make up for all the years 
we’ve wasted by not being married to each other. ” 

" And can I tell you if you’re not being nice enough ? ” 

“ Teach me my lessons ? Oh, yes, you big baby ! ” 

“ Pretend now that you're going to give me the last kiss.” 

“ Oh, Roger, don’t be so ill-omened ! " she pleaded ; 
but she obeyed him, and the desire and the pathos in her 
pleading gave her kiss the desire and pathos which he 
craved to see without any pretending from her. 


202 


Grace Lorraine 


“ And now, Roger, stop this gruesome game, and let 
me give you the kiss of a girl who has won the lover she 
wants after knowing him for years.” 

He slipped his right hand lightly round her right 
shoulder, and took her left hand in his left — the back of 
it into his palm — and took a swift glance at the lovely 
smiling mouth before he laid his lips on it. 

“Yes, that is better/’ he said. 

“ Now, don’t be ill-omened any more, but tell me about 
the times when you wanted to marry me most — that’s 
what I want to hear to-day.” 

They went over them together — the many times when 
only her dread of disillusionment in the long years of 
the future had precluded them from such happiness as 
they were having now — all too short before the summons 
would come for overseas. 

And they were still experiencing the delight of turning 
friendship into gold, in Love the alchemist’s crucible, 
when they heard the ring and the footsteps in the hall 
which betokened the return of their parents. 

Lady Cynthia just peeped in before she went upstairs 
to change for dinner. 

“ Grace has more sense than I credited her with,” she 
said to herself, and she added out loud, “You’d better go 
and dress for dinner, Grace — we’re rather late.” 

Grace bounded up ; she wished to look her very best 
that night. 

His mother was just asking Roger where they had 
better dine when a servant came in to say, “You didn’t 
see the telegram that was waiting for you, My Lady.” 

“ No,” said Lady Cynthia. “ Is that it ? ” 

“ Yes, My Lady.” 

It ran : “I want you all to dine with me at the Royal 
Automobile at eight. — Harvey Wynyard.” 

“ That settles it,” said Roger. “ In any case, Grace 
would enjoy dining there better than anywhere else — it’s 
a sort of Subalterns’ Headquarters.” 

“ It was sent off just after I ’phoned,” said Lady 
Cynthia. “ He must have thought of it directly he hung 
the receiver up. How shall we let him know, Roger ? ” 


203 


Anticipation 

“ ’Phone to the National — he’s sure to be there from 
half-past six to half -past seven, so as to receive your reply. 
What shall I ’phone to him ? ” 

“ Delighted,” said Lady Cynthia Wynyard. 

****** * 

It was a full night at the Royal Automobile Club, full 
of handsome women of all styles, and fuller still of khaki- 
clad officers — men who were back from the front on leave, 
men who were back from the front never to fight again, 
men who were burning to go to the front, and men who 
were burning not to go to the front, but to remain in home- 
billets of a more or less arduous nature. Officers were 
there by hundreds. 

Grace was delighted by the spectacle. This gay, eager, 
laughing crowd, many of whom were fresh from the hardest 
fighting at the front, was indeed an inspiring spectacle. 

And Harvey Wynyard was resolved to do honour to 
the occasion — the double occasion of his grandson’s mar- 
riage and departure for the front. He had never known 
the pinch of money ; he had a good living and a private 
income, and no great expenses down in Devon. He knew 
good wines, and he had ordered them, and a special dinner. 

It was Grace and Roger all night. Innumerable were 
the allusions to the great occasion of the morrow. 

Grace watched now her fiance, now his grandfather. 
But for the war, looking at the stalwart septuagenarian, 
it would have been easy to prophesy a long life for Roger. 
With his nutty complexion and wiry frame, Harvey 
Wynyard looked as if he would live to see a hundred. 

Grace sat between them and was glad to note that 
her father, whose hospitality had been so unbounded, 
was enjoying the fleshpots. 

Roger, with a whole day in front of him before the day 
of embarcation, tried not to neglect the others for Grace, 
and was beaming with happiness and insouciance. 

After dinner, when they were taking their coffee, he let 
his grandfather, who had seated himself beside him, pour 
homely wisdom and a little bit of muscular Christianity 
into his ear for half an hour. He had always been more 


204 


Grace Lorraine 


like a father than a grandfather to the boy. And then, 
while the giver of the feast was talking to Grace, Roger 
had shown his sunniness to his mother, and listened to 
her talking about his marriage, and events still more 
important and more solemn, for another half-hour. And 
then it was time for them to return to New Bedford Place, 
where their parents said a quicker good-night to him than 
Grace did, and went off to their rooms. 

Grace herself, because this was the last time that she 
would ever have to dismiss him with her good-night, gave 
no great while to it, but after doing justice to the Romance 
of the occasion, said, “ We must not be too tired for the 
great day,” and, giving him an exquisite good-night, 
turned her reluctant feet to bed. 

Roger would never forget the beauty of the upturned 
face, the surrender of the long lashes on her cheeks, the 
silent music of her lips. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE CARDS COME TRUE 


T six-thirty on his wedding morning Roger had 



Jr\ precisely the same dream as he had had the day 
before — that he was in the firing-line in France, and that 
the enemy gunners had located him, and shells were 
bursting all round. 

But this time it was not only a hot-water attack ; it 
was his servant, come to tell him that the Regiment, 
whose wagons had gone a week before, was leaving 
Waterloo for Southampton at n a.m., and that the 
Regiment would parade for their departure at nine forty- 
five. He said that he had packed up as much as Roger 
was allowed to take with him to the front, and had 
brought the rest of his things to the hotel to be sent 
down to Seacombe with what he had there. 

Was there anything else that Roger wanted ? There 
was no hurry for himself. He was one of the fatigue 
party who were to stay behind for a few days, with 
Lieutenant Guinness, to clear up the camp. 

“Yes, stand by, and be ready to take a telegram to the 
post-office when it opens. What time does it open ? ” 

“ To tell the truth, sir, I’ve never been there to see, 
but I daresay it is seven that it will be.” 

“ I should think that it would be six,” said Roger 
gravely, “ if they have to give people their letters at 
eight.” 

He did not know that the sorting-office was a separate 
affair, and, like his servant, he had never tried if the post- 
office opened early. 


205 


206 Grace Lorraine 

So he wrote out the telegram and sent his servant off 
with it. 

“ Miss Lorraine, 40, New Bedford Place, London, W.C. 
Sorry we cannot be married this morning. Have to 
parade for France at 9.45. Our train leaves Waterloo 
at eleven. Meet me there to say good-bye, dearest Grace. 
Love. — Roger.” 

And on the back of the telegram, for the address of 
sender, he wrote : 

“ R. Wynyard, Lt. 20th Batt. East Surrey Regt., 
Hotel Louis-Philippe, Kingsburgh.” 

At eight o’clock, when he knew that she would have 
been called, he telephoned to his mother to say that 
the Regiment had been ordered off to France to-day 
instead of to-morrow. As he could not dress, get up 
to town, rout out his grandfather to marry them, get 
married and get back to the camp at Kingsburgh by 
nine forty-five, he would not make a futile rush up to 
town to say good-bye to them at their boarding-house, 
but instead of that, they would meet at the station. He 
expected that the Regiment would be there half an hour 
before their time — Regiments generally were half an hour 
early, he understood, to give the officers time to swear. 

His voice on the telephone sounded absolutely cheery 
to her, and she was too good a mother to let hers sound 
otherwise. 

“ Shall I call Grace to the 'phone ? ” she asked. 

“ Yes, do, please ! ” he said eagerly. And when she 
came, after finding that she had just received his tele- 
gram, he began : “So sorry that we have to put our 
marriage off, old girl 1 But it’s only postponed till the 
war is over. I’ll marry you the very day I come back. 
Better luck next time ! ” 

It was against Roger’s code as a soldier, not only to 
say anything which breathed of disappointment when he 
received his marching orders, but even to feel it. His 
code said very definitely, “ An Englishman must^go to 


The Cards come True 207 

his fate smiling when he cannot resist it, but must sell 
his life as dearly as he can.” 

Grace’s thoughts flew directly to the day he had 
wasted for some reason which she had not under- 
stood, but what she said through the ’phone was, “ All 
right, Roger, my husband. I’ll marry you the day you 
come back, or the first moment you can manage after- 
wards. Good luck and safe return to you. We shall be 
at Waterloo by ten-thirty, and I won’t disgrace you by 
breaking down. I’ll ‘ stand by ’ as you call it for a 
minute, to see if you think of anything more which you 
have to say to me now.” 

“ Nothing — but wait a minute ! See if you can hear 
this.” 

At Grace’s end it sounded like fchitch ! fchitch ! But 
Roger was not using his tongue at all ; he was merely 
making the sounds with his lips. 

The seeming futility of it might have been only another 
way of crying “ Are we downhearted ? No ! ” 

But in another way Roger was woefully downhearted, 
for if he had not wasted that whole day before applying 
for the license, he would have been married to Grace by 
this time. Even in his bath the wheels of repentance 
had been grinding. 

He not only had to dress and eat his breakfast, and 
be at the camp by, say, half-past nine, but he meant to 
say good-bye to Hestia somehow — and how he should 
do it worried him. For if he went to her house, the 
farewell, in view of all that she had done for him, must 
almost inevitably be a sentimental one, and honestly as 
he would have welcomed the sentiment if unaccompanied 
by actions disloyal to Grace, he did not think that it was 
playing the game to Grace to run the chance of it after the 
child-like affection and confidence which she had shown 
him yesterday. 

But, while he was dressing, a solution of sorts dawned 
upon his slow man’s brain. He would ring up Hestia’s 
landlady, who must be about by this time, and get her 
to call Hestia to the ’phone. Then he could tell Hestia 
that the Regiment had sudden orders to sail a day before 


208 


Grace Lorraine 


they were expected, and talk to her for five or ten minutes 
in the spirit, while their weak flesh was separated by 
half a mile. They could speak out their real feelings on 
the telephone — there was a glass box for it in the hall 
at the hotel, and the telephone had a queer little room to 
itself just inside the front door at old-fashioned Fleur- 
delys House. Also he could suggest to her on the 
'phone that she should come with the other inhabitants 
of Kingsburgh up to the wire fence round the parade- 
ground to see the Regiment off — a popular amusement 
with them, especially when it was one of their own Surrey 
Regiments. If she was there by nine-thirty, he would 
be able to talk to her for a quarter of an hour before he 
had to fall in. As he had been sleeping out of camp, he 
meant to be there a quarter of an hour before the time. 

What more he said to her on the telephone must be 
treated as sacred. Roger was so grateful, so ingenuous, 
so downright, that he said things which Hestia would 
treasure until the end of her life. 

Hestia, learning that he was not yet married, said 
less than she would have said, lest she should unsettle 
him in his duty to Grace. She repeated that she had 
nothing to forgive, and every word, every accent, showed 
that her friendship would be undying. 

Long before nine-thirty she was at her post, with a red 
rose for England tied up with a sprig of rosemary for 
remembrance, wrapped in lead paper, which he was to 
open when he reached the front. 

Outwardly they were gay and smiling, the woman 
dressed as carefully as she would have dressed for a 
wedding, the man mountainous in his fleece-lined trench- 
coat, with his revolver and his glasses and his haversack 
and his water-bottle slung round him. 

They had to march from the Park to Barnes Station, 
where a special was waiting to take them to Waterloo. 

The Colonel was already on the parade-ground, talking 
to one of the Majors, when Roger came on to it, the first 
of the officers who had been on leave. He was, the Major 
told Roger, in a fit about the officers who were on leave 
up in London, who could not, where their notices had to 


The Cards come True 


200 


be by telegram, receive them until something after eight. 
The telegram ordering the Regiment to start on Friday 
morning instead of Saturday should have reached the 
Colonel on Thursday night, but somebody through whose 
hands it had passed had not considered it urgent. 

However, all of them were in their places a few minutes 
before the Colonel gave the word, “ Regiment — 'tenshun 
— quick march ! ” and the big drummer gave his three 
thumps, and the band, borrowed from the London Scottish, 
struck up the time-honoured marching-tune, so appropriate 
for a Regiment quartered in Kingsburgh Park — “ The 
Girl I Left Behind Me.” 

To the woman who had been talking to Roger till the 
bugle rang out the “Fall in,” the gallant old tune had 
a double significance. But she could not be sad, for the 
men, while they had been standing about in little groups 
waiting to fall in, had been ragging each other with their 
“ Are we downhearted ? No ! ” and the like, and the 
officers, full of “ buck,” had been chaffing the subalterns 
who had come back from leave in literally “ such a devil 
of a hurry ” — picturing the Mohammedan paradises from 
which they had been torn by telegram and telephone. 
They could not understand why Roger, the cheeriest 
“ ragger ” in the Regiment, should pull such a wry face 
over it when, at the sound of the bugle, he came up from 
where he had been talking to Hestia. 

He had again, in the intervals of the high spirits of a 
Regiment's departure, poured out his gratitude and his 
appreciation of her generosity, and given her a little gold 
match-box, with the badge of the East Surrey Regiment 
on it, which he had seen in the window of a Kingsburgh 
jeweller when he left her to go back to his hotel after 
their farewell walk. It had taken a day to engrave, though 
the words were so few : 

TO HESTIA, 

From R.W., p.p.c. 

Roger thought the p.p.c . — partant pour campagnc — 
very clever. He meant campaign not country. 

It was ecstasy to Hestia every minute that Roger was 

14 


210 


Grace Lorraine 


>vith her, and it was hardly less ecstasy when the bugle 
sounded and he fell into his place on the right of No. i 
Company. The Colonel had given him the vacant 
lieutenancy in No. i Company (he had been gazetted a 
full lieutenant on account of previous service ; oh, the 
irony of it after those dreadful weeks of training as a 
private !) because he was such a big, splendid-looking 
man. 

And she was weeping tears of pride and excitement, 
not sadness, when the band struck up “ The Girl I Left 
Behind Me,” and the Regiment, with its packs and its 
trenching-tools and its water-bottles and its rolled-up 
overcoats and its slung gas-masks, took the right wheel 
out of the gates into the road, where a little crowd was 
waiting to march with a Surrey Regiment from its native 
heath, represented by Kingsburgh Park, to its entraining 
point, represented by the suburban platforms of Barnes. 

The crowd half ran to keep up with them — Hestia in 
her wedding garment among them — and at very short 
intervals “The Girl I Left Behind Me ” was followed by 
“ The Lass of Richmond Hill,” also not without significance 
to one person in that crowd, and the fine old Scottish 
air, to which at mess-tent sing-songs the words now run : 

“ Oh where, and oh where has my Hieland laddie gone ? 

He’s gone to fight the Boche for King George upon his throne ! ” 

to enliven the heavy tramp through the muddy lanes. 

And finally, as the train steamed out of the station for 
Waterloo, the brawny Scotsmen of the band blew out, 
with all the leather of their lungs : 

“ Soon to be in London Town, 

Hieland laddie, bonnie laddie,” 

and the men, craning their heads out of the carriages 
far down the line, heard the roll of the little drums, while 
Hestia, 'though her eyes were gleaming, was still in ecstasy. 

Until the train was ready to start the men, “ standing 
easy ” on the long platform, were allowed to give vent to 
their feelings as they pleased. A few were saying good- 
bye to wives or sweethearts, or dandling their children, 
but for the most part their female belongings were at 


The Cards come True 211 

Waterloo. Only the locally raised men were making their 
adieux here. 

The rest gave three cheers for the Colonel — who had 
marched at their head on foot, his charger having gone 
on with the Regimental transport — and various senior 
officers, and at intervals chanted their “ Are we down- 
hearted ? No ! ” or sang the chorus of “ Keep the Home 
Fires Burning.” But whatever they did was to the 
accompaniment of boisterous high spirits. 

Hestia, who had managed to keep up, was able to 
chat to Roger all the time the Regiment was on the plat- 
form. The men were left to themselves until the Colonel 
gave the order to entrain. 

A few minutes later Hestia found herself alone with a 
crowd on the platform. A week ago she would have 
kissed Roger before everyone. 

At Waterloo the men were turned out to transfer into 
a main-line train, which was drawn up on the opposite 
side of the platform, awaiting them. There was nothing 
to prevent them transfering direct from train to train, 
but there was a quarter of an hour to spare, and the Colonel 
thought that they could say good-bye to their belongings 
more comfortably if they were “ standing easy ” on the 
platform. So he gave the order, and the belongings, 
which had been kept behind the barrier, surged in, the 
Lorraines and the Wynyards and the kith and kin of 
other officers among them. 

Most of the officers had already deposited the para- 
phernalia with which the British officer has to adorn 
himself in action, on the seats of their first-class smokers, 
but Roger thought that his fiancee would like to see him 
in his fighting-kit, so he had not discarded his. 

He kissed his mother and Grace, who was perfectly 
wifely about it. 

“ Well, what do you think of my war-paint ? ” he 
asked. “ I would not shed it until you had inspected me ' 

“ Oh, my poor Roger, they treat you like a camel 
said Lady Cynthia, with Eastern memories before her. 

“ I think you look splendidly serviceable,” said Grace, 
“ but do you attack with all that weight on you ? ” 

14* 


212 


Grace Lorraine 


“You have to. You never know when you will get 
back/' said Roger, not knowing whether you did or not. 
“ And you have to wear a gas-helmet as welL ,, 

Roger began very dutifully — dividing himself between 
his mother and Grace — until his mother said, “ Devote 
yourself to Grace. I like to look at you together and 
dream dreams/' 

Roger obeyed her with a big pulse of gratitude in his 
veins. He was all eyes for his lovely fiancee, and she 
was so wifely with him. 

“ Oh, Grace l ” he said in a low voice, “ was there ever 
such a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip ? And to think of 
it — that if I had been free to get the license on Wednesday, 
we might have been husband and wife for a whole day ! ” 

“ I can’t tell you how I feel, Roger. It is like a direct 
thrust from heaven.” 

“ I think it is more like a thrust from the other place.” 

“ Hush, Roger ! I hate you talking like that.” 

“ I’m awfully sorry, but it is riling, when one might 
have rushed the thing through if one had known what 
was going to happen.” 

“ Oh, Roger, do you think you could have ? ” 

“ I’m sure I could ! ” 

“ Then it’s cruel ! ” 

Cruel ! It was cruel. And the cruelty lay at his 
door. But he was paying for it, too, and more cruelly 
than she was. 

“ But don’t let’s worry about it, Grace. Perhaps it 
was intended for the good. If I was missing, for instance, 
it would be awful for you to be tied up, because you never 
could be certain what had happened till the end of the 
war 1 ” 

“ Don’t frighten me so ! You’ll come back all right, 
to marry and be happy ever afterwards.” 

“ I mean to, dearest.” 

At this moment it struck Roger that he ought to 
introduce some of his brother-officers to his fiancee. He 
had hardly made the introductions when they heard the 
Colonel’s voice, ordering the Regiment to entrain. 

The officers stood about doing nothing while the men 


The Cards come True 


213 


were taking their places. Theoretically they were super- 
intending, but the men moved in automatically, and 
Grace, not knowing that Roger was supposed to be doing 
anything, went on talking. 

“ What about Hestia, Roger ? I was going to ask 
you about her/’ 

Roger looked at her sharply. It was clear that she 
had no arriere-pensee in asking the question. 

“ I should like you to be tremendous pals with Hestia. 
You can’t think how good she has been to me while I have 
been at Kingsburgh. It was she who worried Dartmoor 
into getting me my commission, or I shouldn’t be going 
to-day.” 

Grace wondered if Hestia had been an unmixed blessing. 


CHAPTER XXX 


MR. DRYANDER BEGINS HIS VENDETTA 

R OGER had been in France for many a week, and 
Proserpine, the Spring Goddess, had come up 
from below the earth, and was spangling the fresh green 
carpet of the woods with primrose yellows and hyacinth 
blues, and the blushing white of wood-anemones. 

Down at Via Pacis things were moving quietly. The 
seasons were early there, and everything else late. Even 
the Middle Ages had died hard there, if indeed, they were 
dead, and not still living in Henry Lorraine. 

But with the people who had gone forth from Via Pacis 
events moved faster. Dal Dryander had shown the 
cloven hoof. Not content with trying to swindle Hestia 
over her musical-comedy, he had wearied her with his 
attentions. 

She might be, as he said, “ the loveliest and most 
lovable woman in the world,” but she had not moved his 
stony heart to the length of trying to treat her fairly. 
The fact was that, though Dal Dryander was willing to 
spend money prodigally on the indulgence of his pleasures 
and his vices, he could be exceedingly mean over making it. 

It seemed incredible to him that a woman like Hestia, 
whom he considered to be much in his debt, should be 
deaf to his advances. He believed himself one of the 
handsomest and best-dressed men connected with the 
stage, and having an income which ran into five figures, 
he was willing to indulge her in any extravagance, if she 
would listen to his suit. He had diagnosed her as a 

214 


Mr. Dryander begins His Vendetta 215 

woman who, under certain circumstances, might fling 
conventionality to the winds. 

Unfortunately, Hestia had Roger to compare him with, 
and considered him a mongrel foreign bounder, especially 
since she had not found him pleasant to deal with in 
money matters. 

He had, also, made the fatal mistake of hinting that 
he might be pleasanter to deal with in this matter if she 
was more accommodating in other things, and had gone 
to the length of saying that she should not collaborate 
with him in his next musical-comedy if she did not alter. 

This put her on her mettle. She did not wish to 
lose her newly-found prosperity, but Mr. Dryander was 
intolerable. Her lawyer, Mr. Skewen, advised her to 
approach an impresario named Ace, an Englishman, whom 
it had been the aim of the Rothenstein Agency to ruin. 
No singer on their list was ever allowed to appear at his 
theatre ; no composer on their list was permitted to 
deal with him. But Mr. Ace was a capable man, and 
formed without any of the well-known stars, recruiting 
chiefly from promising singers who could not afford to 
pay the blackmail of the Rothenstein Agency, an excellent 
all-British company, and, since he had confidence in his 
own judgment, he produced pieces of unusual excellence 
by composers who had not yet made their name. He had 
begun his career by a thousand-pound prize for the best 
musical-comedy. All rights in the piece which took the 
prize were to pass to him, and he stated that he would 
be willing to buy any of the other compositions which 
were sent in if they appeared to be of sufficient merit. 

He was deluged with pieces, a few of which were of 
outstanding merit. He paid over the prize at once, and 
bought two others at liberal prices. 

So many people wished to see the thousand-pound 
piece as a curiosity that its brilliant merits became known, 
and a run of two years was the result. When this run 
was over, he produced the other two pieces. The first 
had had a decent run, and the second had begun well. 

Wilfrid Ace was contemplating advertising a fresh 
thousand-pound prize — the first had saved several times 


216 


Grace Lorraine 


the amount in royalties, when he received a visit from 
a man who had played a leading part in “ The War- 
workers,” but had had a quarrel with Mr. Dryander and 
wished to be even with him. 

Willie Jordan knew, as everyone else in the company 
knew, that “ The War- workers ” was not Dryander s 
music, but Hestia’s, and he thought that the shrewdest 
blow which he could deal Dryander would be to get the 
new piece which Hestia had been writing put on at 
another theatre. Hestia had told him about Dryander’ s 
threat — not to collaborate in it with her. 

“ But why should you collaborate, Miss Myrtle ? If 
Wilfrid Ace takes your piece, he’ll give you a higher 
royalty than you get for your share at present, though 
it won’t be as high as yours and Dryander’ s combined. 
He and his conductor will do the staging and touching-up 
themselves, so as to adapt it to their requirements. He 
likes his son-in-law to write the book, and scoop all the 
best things into a part for his daughter.” 

Hestia, without the least hope that anything would 
come of it, let him try, and to her astonishment it resulted 
in her music being accepted, on much better terms for 
her than she had enjoyed before, and with her name on it. 

“ When the time comes, it will be announced that you 
collaborated with Dryander in * The War- workers,’ and 
he can’t deny it, because you have your contract to 
show.” 

Long before Wilfrid Ace produced “ The C.O.” Mr. 
Dryander had found out all about it, and was furious 
with Hestia. 

“ Is this the way you reward me for making your 
fortune ? ” he asked. “ In common honesty, let alone 
decency, you ought to have given me the option of 
collaborating with you ! ” 

“ But, my dear Mr. Dryander, it was you who would 
not give me the option. You told me almost threateningly 
that if I wouldn’t — shall we say, bribe you in a very 
undignified way — you would never collaborate with me 
again. I refused your insulting overtures, and I should 
go on refusing them for the rest of my life. It was only 


Mr. Dryander begins His Vendetta 217 

when you had definitely announced your intention not 
to collaborate with me any more that, in self-defence, I 
had to look about for a new market.” 

“You ought to have known that I did not mean it, 
Hestia,” he said. She could not resent his calling her 
Hestia because she had been Hestia to his household for 
years. 

You did not mean it if I could sell my music equally 
well elsewhere, Mr. Dryander, but you did mean it if I 
couldn’t sell it without you.” 

“You shall rue it — you shall rue it ! ” 

Hestia realized that she had made a very powerful 
and vindictive enemy in her musical career. But she 
hoped, with the aid of Wilfrid Ace, to survive his enmity, 
and did not worry about it. If “ The C.O.” was a success, 
her career would be tolerably secure. 

But Dal Dryander did not propose to confine his efforts 
to crushing her in her work for the stage ; he intended, if 
she would not respond to his advances, to damage her 
character irretrievably with the Via Pacis and Seacombe 
circles, which had formed her world for the past few 
years — or, if possible, to use any evidence which was 
found against her to blackmail her into complying with 
his desires. 

Being very rich for a man of his limitations, he did not 
mind how much money he spent on ruining her, or break- 
ing her spirit, and the most obvious way in which to do 
it was to employ a detective to collect evidence against her. 

It was much easier than he expected. Hestia had no 
idea or intention of covering her tracks. The very first 
question the detective asked himself was : Why did a 
woman who seems fond of Bohemian life, when she first 
got back from the country, settle herself at Kingsburgh 
instead of in town ? 

A few questions to the landlady in the house where 
Dryander had enjoyed her hospitality elicited the fact 
that an officer from the camp in Kingsburgh Park came 
to see her nearly every day, and often spent several hours 
with her. 

“ Who was this officer ? ” 


218 Grace Lorraine 

“ Lieutenant R. Wynyard, of the East Surrey 
Regiment." 

“Was there any evidence of improper behaviour on 
these visits ? " 

Nothing of this nature had been noticed, but they 
appeared to be on very friendly terms. 

Thinking that they might be careful of their actions 
in a small and gossipy place like Kingsburgh, the detective 
transfered his attention to what they had done on the 
occasions when they went up to London. 

These appeared to be equally colourless, except on the 
night when they went up for the “ O.P. dinner to the 
Right Hon. D. Lloyd George." 

On that occasion, as an employee of the Hotel Cecil 
— the commissionaire who calls their carriages and cabs 
for people — remembered, the people described by the 
detective were very much disturbed because there was 
no taxi to be had to take them down to Kingsburgh, 
owing to the traffic having been stopped on account of 
a Zeppelin raid. They eventually, he said, had left the 
hotel on foot, to see if they could get a train which helped 
them at all for Kingsburgh. 

“ What time was that ? " asked the detective. 

“ Well towards twelve o’clock." 

Then, Zeps or no Zeps, there was no train on a Sunday 
night, and if there was no cab to be got, they must have 
spent the night in London. 

Having got thus far, he started out to examine all the 
hotel registers in the neighbourhood for that date. And 
at the very first hotel he thought of trying he found this 
all-important entry : 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Myrtle." 

Roger, then, had posed as her husband ! 

He asked the hotel-clerk if he remembered these parties 
passing the night there, letting it be understood that the 
information was worth five pounds to him. The clerk 
remembered them perfectly ; they were such a very good- 
looking couple and so charming in their manners, even to 


Mr. Dryander begins His Vendetta 219 

this ungrateful sneak himself. They did not go away until 
about the middle of the next morning. 

The detective had got what he wanted. After this, the 
minor information, like the presentation of the gold match- 
box, “ To Hestia from R.W.,” and so on, fell flat. 

When the detective brought him the results, Mr. Dry- 
ander was no longer in any doubt as to why Hestia had 
repelled his advances. It was because she was having an 
affair with an officer, and even without the “ Hestia from 
R.W.,” and the badge of the East Surreys, there was not 
the least difficulty in proving that this officer was Roger 
Wynyard, whose attentions to her down at his home in 
Devon were well-known. 

Having established the fact that she had passed a night 
at a hotel with Roger, the next thing was how to use it 
to her disadvantage ? After due consideration he thought 
he might make Grace his tool in the matter. 

All Seacombe and Via Pacis were aware that Roger was 
her fiance , and that but for the Regiment being sent 
abroad a day before it was expected, she would by this 
time have been Mrs. Wynyard. She was obviously, there- 
fore, the person most individually interested in Hestia’s 
downfall, and there were two, to him, good reasons why 
he should make her his instrument. The first was that, 
far from having any compunction about shattering the 
dream of a beautiful fiancee, to whose father he stood under 
the obligation for the start in life which he had got from 
being on the Fellowship of Via Pacis, it was a source of 
satisfaction to him. 

He had, according to his ideas, good cause for hating 
her. He was a great admirer of her aristocratic type of 
beauty. It did not inspire him with sinister designs, like 
Hestia’s more passionate type, but it gave him gratifica- 
tion and pride to be frequently in the society of such a 
woman, and it would have helped him in what Americans 
call the “ social climb,” to have the run of the Manor House 
in the way that Mr. Sylvester and Hestia and the Count had 
it. When he became so wealthy, he expected that his 
money would give him this entree, but Grace thought 
him a detestable bounder, and the wealthier and more 


220 


Grace Lorraine 


expansive he became, the less inclined she felt to 
tolerate his presence at the Manor House, except at fetes, 
to which the whole community was invited. 

He had therefore no compunction, and knowing by 
experience how uncompromising she could be, he had every 
reason to suppose that she would be equally unsparing to 
Hestia. 

The next thing was, how should he convey the news to 
Grace ? 

A very short reflection convinced him that Hestia herself 
had supplied him with the machinery, for in sending Mr. 
Lorraine’s lawyer at Plymouth — Mr. Skewen — to him to 
draw up the contract for their collaboration in “ The War- 
workers,” she had sent him the very man for his purpose. 
Since the Lorraines had shown him so plainly that they were 
unwilling to admit him to their intimacy, it was obviously 
much better form for him to broach the matter through their 
lawyer than direct, and their lawyer was likely to be a great 
deal easier to convince than they were. So he told the 
detective, keeping his name out of the matter, to place the 
facts before Mr. Skewen. Mr. Skewen had a solicitor son in 
London who conducted his affairs there, a malformed 
creature who could not be called up for any kind of service 
in the war, and nothing was easier than for him to verify 
the evidence collected by the detective. The hotel was 
within a few minutes’ walk of his office ; the hotel-clerk 
had no objection to earning more money ; nor had the 
jeweller’s assistant who had sold Roger the gold match-box, 
and had it engraved for him. But the servant at Fleurdelys 
House, suspecting that the detective was trying to injure 
Hestia, stoutly refused to have anything more to do 
with him. 

When Mr. Lorraine’s solicitor had verified the facts, he 
felt it to be his duty to communicate them to Mr. Lorraine, 
to show him the kind of man his son-in-law-to-be was. 
It was true that he had pleasant and not inconsiderable 
dealings with Hestia herself now. But his prejudices about 
morals were as strong as his prejudices about noblesse 
oblige in business were weak. 

Mr. Lorraine was altogether unwilling to move in the 


Mr. Dryander begins His Vendetta 221 

matter. In an innocent way he was fond of Hestia, and 
Roger he loved better than anything in the world, except 
Grace — perhaps almost as much as Grace. And though he 
was a man of strait-laced ideas himself, he was opposed 
to exercising any sort of moral censorship over the Fellows 
of Via Pacis. He wished them only to be under their 
country’s laws. Freedom was the essence of his schemes. 
Especially was he unwilling to lift his hand against a man 
who was fighting for his country, even if he had cherished 
no personal affection for him. 

Mr. Dryander would not accept defeat. His first inter- 
view with the hunchbacked solicitor son had convinced 
one who was a fair reader of character that he was dealing 
with a man wholly lacking in the milk of human kindness, 
who cherished a grudge against the whole human race in 
revenge for his own deformity. So he paid him another 
visit to engage his services, for very heavy fees, against 
Hestia, whose business ingratitude in a matter with which 
the lawyer was acquainted was likely to cause Mr. Dryander 
a heavy financial loss. 

This much was true — that Mr. Dryander was going to 
lose by Hestia’s revolt. Mr. Skewen, junior, knew that. 
Beyond it he was going to make heavy fees, and knowing 
Grace, he regarded her with a hunchback’s malevolence for 
the beautiful. It gave the creature a thrill of exultation 
to think that it was in his power to deal such a person as 
Grace such a stab. By his instructions, the detective, 
since he did not wish his own name to appear in the matter, 
wrote to Grace to say that he had evidence of her fiance's 
having passed himself off at a hotel as the husband of one 
Hestia Myrtle, known, as he believed, to Miss Lorraine, 
who was in his company. He had come across the informa- 
tion, he said, in the pursuit of his business, and he wished 
to know what Miss Lorraine would be disposed to give for 
the proofs, to hush the matter up or proceed with it, as 
she chose. 


CHAPTER XXXI 

HOW GRACE RECEIVED THE NEWS OF 
ROGER’S INFIDELITY 

H IS letter came upon Grace like a thunderbolt. She 
did not believe that it was true, and she had no 
intention of answering his letter. But the strong streak 
of common sense, which was in her, told her that the issue 
for her to decide was not whether it was true or no, but 
what she should do if it was true. Otherwise, it would 
always be hanging over her like an avalanche ready to fall. 

The first question which she asked herself was, how 
could Roger, her fiance, have indulged in this vulgar 
intrigue with Hestia ? It was so unlike Roger, that 
Public-School Bayard. There must be something behind 
this, apart from Hestia’s undoubted attractions and 
recklessness. That it had happened at all, assuming it 
to be true, hurt her horribly. She had no sex emotion 
herself, and could not understand a woman being betrayed 
into this sort of intrigue by the loss of her self-control. 
And Roger’s code should certainly have been proof against 
such a temptation. 

But apart from the paralysing accusation which had 
just reached her by post, she had, until that last long day 
which she and Roger had spent together, only too good 
reason to fear that all was not normal with him. She 
would never forget how Roger had rejected her offer of 
friendship and affection before he left Seacombe for the 
last time, or the cold, perfunctory way in which he had 
parted from her. She would never forget the evasiveness, 
the almost indifference with which he received the informa- 


2 2.1 


How Grace received the News 223 


tion that she had changed her mind, and resolved to marry 
him — immediately. 

What did this mean ? What could it mean except that 
he had an intrigue with Hestia, which hindered him in 
accepting her offers, though she was the woman whom he 
loved ? And what could the change which had come 
over him on the last day mean, except that in making up 
his mind between her and Hestia, he had loved her enough 
to give up his intrigue in order to marry her ? 

With her pure, high nature, she would never have 
dreamed of such a thing if she had not received that letter. 
But having received it, she was bound to review the recent 
events which had been so difficult to understand. She was 
disgusted ineffably : the mirror of her innocence was 
shattered ; but what was she to do ? She had already 
decided not to answer the detective’s letter. Nor did she 
feel any more disposed to take Hestia to task, though she 
felt as if she could never again receive her as an intimate. 
As for Roger, she had given him her troth and her heart 
and he was fighting the battles of his country in France, 
with his life in his hand every minute. Clearly she must 
write nothing to depress him, or shake his confidence in her. 
There must be a Peace of God while he was fighting. 

Nor could she consult with anyone. Her father, above 
all, must not know it, for, coming after the other shock, it 
might bring down his grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. 
And Roger’s mother ! What good could she do by killing 
Lady Cynthia’s belief in Roger ? It would not undo the 
evil which had been done. 

No, there was no one whom she could consult. She 
must bear her cross alone. 

She wrote her daily letter to Roger as if nothing had 
happened, though she went about with a dagger in her heart 
like the Mother of Sorrows. 

What else could she do, when she received letters like 
this ? : 

“ th, 1915. 

“ My Own Grace, 

“ I am writing this letter in the trench, so you 
must not mind its being in pencil and half washed-out. 


224 


Grace Lorraine 


This is no picnic, I can assure you. It’s not bad when the 
Boches are attacking, though we only have a quarter of 
the men we ought to have to hold the trench, and no 
reserves ; and you know that if your thin line breaks, 
they will be into Calais in just the time that it takes them 
to cover the ground when there is no one to stop them. 

" I have a rifle like the men. I was a pretty good shot 
at Rugby. I suppose I could have got into the Bisley VIII. 
if I hadn’t been playing cricket. 

“ It’s splendidly exciting, standing in a not very good 
trench, with the Boches coming at you in masses — linked 
arms, and all that sort of thing — and knowing that if you 
can’t keep them down with your rifle-fire, it’s all up with 
the First Army Corps. Machine-guns could do it easily, 
but we only have four where we ought to have a hundred, 
and they’re almost worn out. But so far we’ve managed 
to hold our own, though we’ve had to use the bayonet once 
or twice, when they got right up to our ramparts. The 
men like that. The difficulty is to keep them in and make 
them use their rifle-fire when the Boches get anywhere 
close. With anything like the same numbers — even when 
they’re two to one they can’t stand up to our men with the 
bayonet. But if we lose one man to their two or three, as 
we have to when it comes to the bayonet, we haven’t got 
enough men to spare. They out-number us ten to one at 
this point. 

“ Still, I must say that I enjoy the fighting. I came out 
here to fight. I wanted to go into the Army to fight for 
England. It’s the rest of it that tries me so. It’s always 
raining when it’s not freezing ; it’s always cold ; there is 
always a wind cutting through you ; you’re always ankle- 
deep in mud and water, except when you’re knee-deep. 
The trench isn’t deep enough, because you get to water if 
you dig deeper, and we’ve no proper communication 
trenches. When we’re relieved, we have to struggle across 
fields where the shrapnel falls like rain, and our caps don’t 
stop shrapnel. We ought to have helmets like the Germans. 
There’s such a lot that might be done if Kitchener was out 
here to do it. The men say that he’s A i at that sort of 
job, and that even old Buller wasn’t bad at that in the 


How Grace received the News 225 

Boer War. But the men that we’ve got here, do nothing 
to economize lives and health, except give you full rations. 
They say that no army ever was so well fed. Personally I 
don’t fancy their food much, but anything’s good enough 
for me when I know that I’m doing my bit, and thank God, 
I'm doing that at last ! 

“ As this letter is going to be censored by one of our 
own chaps, I can’t put in the love, but it’s enough for 
a whole Army Corps, you darling Grace. 

“ From your husband that ought to be, 

“ Roger.” 

No, she could not write anything to dash Roger’s cheerful 
acceptance of the grim fare of war. She did nothing, 
but the hunchback was not going to abandon his prospective 
gains without a struggle. Under his instructions, the 
detective wrote to her, enclosing his evidence, saying that 
she could return it to him with her offer. This was an 
unusual piece of confidence, but he was receiving adequate 
remuneration, apart from its sale, though he hoped that 
this would largely increase his profits. 

The hunchback was not working to blackmail Grace ; 
he was working to ruin Hestia by making Grace her enemy, 
and to do this it was necessary that Grace should know 
the facts, whether she could be induced to pay for them 
or not. 

Grace did read them, and saw that the intrigue was a 
fact — that was proved up to the hilt. But she returned 
them to the sender without any answer, or anything to 
show that she had read them. 

After a sufficient interval, without any reply from her 
being elicited, the hunchback wrote to her himself, that 
as the son and representative in London of her father’s 
lawyer, he considered it his duty to inform her that Detec- 
tive Shapley had placed the information (which he herewith 
sent back to her) in his hands. He begged her to read the 
matter carefully, and instruct his father, her family’s 
solicitor, as to what she wished to have done in the matter. 

Grace wrote at once to the elder Mr. Skewen, enclosing 
his son’s letter and the detective’s notes, and begged him 

15 


226 


Grace Lorraine 


to take measures to prevent his son troubling her any more 
in the matter. She did not wish to know anything about 
it, she said, and so far as she was concerned, the incident 
must be regarded as closed. 

Mr. Skewen, senior, although his Puritan warp filled 
him with implacable resentment against Hestia, wrote an 
exceedingly stiff letter to his son, in which he said that if 
there were any more instances of his writing to one of their 
clients direct, he would cease to be the firm's representa- 
tive in London. He also naturally informed Mr. Lorraine 
of what had taken place. 

But Mr. Lorraine, though he was now aware that his 
daughter shared his knowledge of the intrigue, shrank from 
discussing such a subject with her. 

Grace had a heavy burden to carry in those days, when 
she was writing loving letters to Roger with a fox gnawing 
at her heart. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


A LETTER FROM ROGER 

G RACE was glad that she had held her hand from 
worrying Roger because his next letter showed 
how even his hardiness and pluck were tried. It was 
not censored, having been brought home by a wounded 
officer, and posted under cover in England. In it he 
wrote : 

“ This place is getting pretty awful. We don’t get 
any sleep — that is, most of us don’t. I’m better than 
some, for when the Germans do let us alone, and we lie 
down on the wet and muddy ground, I can go to sleep 
for whatever time they give us, and I’m one of the very 
few who can. And I don’t get colds by all this exposure. 
All I get is sore heels by my boots sticking in the mud, 
and having to be lifted up for every step. 

“ But the mud is only the least of the evils. We are 
so short-handed that we often have to go without food 
for twenty-four hours at a stretch. For even if the 
transport can bring up enough wagons to get anything 
through except ammunition, there is no one to cook it, 
or distribute it, for every man has to be in the fighting- 
line. And you can think of what that means when you 
never get relieved. Being four to one makes the Boches 
so aggressive that you never know where to look for them. 
They hide in our lines, and creep out and do our men in 
if one or two or three of them are trying to sleep, and 
none of their pals are near. They snipe us from trees — ■ 

227 15* 


228 


Grace Lorraine 


anything over a hundred yards off. They come up and 
dig-themselves-in not half that distance from our front 
trench, so that they may rush us as they rushed a battalion 
of the Gordons which held this trench, a very unhealthy 
spot, two before us. 

“ I don’t know what we should do if we hadn’t got a 
devil of a Major who has the eye of a hawk, and more 
lives than a cat. Every morning he turns his glasses on 
the trees, spots a few snipers, and then picks up his rifle 
and does a bit of big game shooting. You see them drop 
like that leopard in ‘ The Early Days of Salisbury.’ I 
don’t mean the Salisbury near the place where they make 
bacon, but the pukka Salisbury in Mashonaland. And 
it’s the same thing when they are dashing across a few 
yards of open by day, to get into the trench they have 
dug right under our front sandbags. He drops them 
like rabbits. You’ll be surprised to hear that they come 
in by day, but they simply have to, because none of them 
will stay in that trench at night. He has put the . . . 
so ” (here Roger had used some expression which he 
thought would not do, and had scratched it out without 
substituting anything). “ I went out with him the only 
time he let anyone go with him — we simply took trench 
daggers and our revolvers, which we were not going to 
use till the last extremity, because it would spoil the 
fun. He wouldn’t let me go beside him ; I had to keep 
three yards behind, as near as I could by ear. We both 
crawled on our stomachs in the mud. Every now and 
then I heard sounds which made my flesh creep. It was 
the Major doing somebody in. He’s a ‘ dug-out,’ and he 
learnt this business from the Redskins when he had a 
ranch in the Sioux country. My instructions were to do 
nothing unless he got into a nest of them, and they put 
up a fight or ran. I thought I should be scared to death, 
but I wasn’t. It made such demands on one’s sporting 
training that I was too interested to be frightened, though 
that noise made my flesh creep each time. It made no 
difference that I knew my man was on the top. It was 
the awfulness of that kind of sudden death coming to 
anyone, even a Boche. 


229 


A Letter from Roger 

“ Suddenly he struck several of them, and except the 
few we had time to deal with, they got up and bolted, we 
firing our revolvers into them. As they bolted they put 
up others. But our cheerful blighters bagged most of 
them, because when the Major goes out, they crawl up on 
the top of the breastwork, and lie flat, waiting to hear 
his revolver go off, and then jump down into the German 
trench. It’s a great game. 

“ It’s our only relief, for you can’t think what it is 
like to be at it day and night for a month, with no one to 
take your place and give you a rest. They did send 
somebody up once, and we managed to drag ourselves 
back to a healthier spot. It took us two days to do it, 
and when we got there we found a lot of London Generals 
waiting to run us up again, because our reliefs were wanted 
further along the line, where some dismounted French 
cavalry had bolted without the Germans twigging it. 

“ Well, I mustn’t grouse. I’m all right. I’ve got 
nothing the matter with me, except sore heels, while the 
Major, poor devil, has at least three things for which he 
ought to be in hospital, but he’s not going to chuck it 
while he can keep free from a cough, which would spoil 
his trench work. 

“You mustn’t worry about me, Grace. One gets 
accustomed to anything — even to an avalanche of Black 
Marias which dig holes as big as our dining-room at the 
Rectory, followed by an avalanche of rifle-fire, followed 
by an avalanche of Boches, trying to rush your lines just 
as you are thinking of a little sleep. Even the ‘ Marias ’ 
are a blessing in disguise, because we have no water here, 
except the rain which their shell-holes collect for us. 

“ Well, ta-ta. I’m sorry I can’t accept your kind 
invitation to dinner to-night — especially so because we 
have had no grub here since yesterday morning. 

“ With as much love as we are getting ‘ hate,’ 

“ Always your affectionate husband that ought to be, 

“ Roger.’’ 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


MR. EBBUTT GOES STILL FURTHER INTO THE MIDDLE AGES I 
THE FOUNDING OF THE NEW TAORMINA 

M R. EBBUTT had by this time completely identified 
himself with Henry Lorraine’s Via Pacis projects. 
His immense wealth, amounting to several millions sterling 
— he was one of the largest contributors to the British 
income-tax — made the expense a trifle to him, and the 
idea of restoring the ancient monastery to its pristine 
condition appealed extraordinarily to his romantic mind. 
It was a fresh incursion into the Middle Ages. He would 
have restored the Abbey church itself if Mr. Lorraine 
had suggested it, even at the sacrifice of that exquisite 
garden, but Mr. Lorraine had always held that any religious 
connection would defeat the purpose of the Fellowship. 

He had made up his mind from the beginning that no 
feelings of false pride or false shame should keep him from 
visiting Mr. Ebbutt in the Manor House as freely as he 
would if it had never belonged to him. Mr. Ebbutt 
became the dearest friend whom he had ever had, for he 
was much more closely in sympathy with his projects than 
Harvey Wynyard had ever been, though the clergyman 
had been a hardworking trustee of the Fellowship, and had 
been the friend of all the fellows and their families. Henry 
Lorraine had lost a large fortune, and Mr. Ebbutt had 
made a fortune ten times as great, but they were by nature 
singularly alike, in spite of the difference of their birth 
and upbringing, and shared each other’s tastes completely. 
Grace still continued to resist her father’s attempts to 
230 


The Founding of the New Taormina 231 

draw her into the friendship. That such a mushroom 
should reign in the halls of her ancestors was to her 
unforgivable. 

He on his part worshipped the ground she walked on. 
Her apparition on the day when he came to look over the 
place had decided him forthwith. The fact that she 
breathed the air of the same village sometimes filled him 
with a mild exultation, though she might have been living 
in Plymouth from the seldomness with which she was 
ever under the same roof as he was. But his prevailing 
feeling was one of the hope defered which maketh the 
heart sick, because he never seemed to get any nearer 
to an even ordinary acquaintance with her. 

His third incursion was in the matter of a barn, which 
stood a few hundred yards north of the monastery, at 
the edge of the ancient apple-orchard which the monks 
used for making their cider, and which extended for 
half a mile above the south sands, the link between the 
town and Via Pacis. The apple trees, feathered with 
hoary lichen, were more picturesque than prolific. The 
orchard was grassed over like a meadow, and was used 
by Mr. Ebbutt for pasturing his dairy cows. The barn 
had not been used since the suppression of the Abbey, 
because the suppressors had taken off its roof to capture 
the monks who had taken refuge there. It was a beau- 
tiful Gothic building of the fourteenth century, cruciform 
in shape, nearly a hundred feet long, and perhaps fifty 
feet across the transepts. It was still perfect, with the 
exception of its roof, and its gables were finely adorned 
with niches, in some of which the little statues were still 
standing, though very weather-beaten. 

Mr. Ebbutt had decided to restore it for theatrical 
representations. He had been at Glastonbury during the 
annual musical festival, and had determined to institute 
a festival of the same kind at Via Pacis, for reasons in 
connection with his building scheme. 

It had struck him as waste that an institution like the 
Via Pacis Fellowship should be located in a small fishing 
village with inhabitants of limited intelligence. He 
determined to put up a model health resort, which would 


232 


Grace Lorraine 


confer prosperity on the fishermen and other original 
inhabitants of Seacombe, while it gave Via Pacis appro- 
priate neighbours. He had learned with astonishment 
that Seacombe, which had a winter climate as good as 
Torquay, had no winter visitors, until an examination of 
the fishermen’s cottages showed him the reason. 

The village was built on the flat, round the harbour. 

To give the place a winter season as well as a summer 
season, he determined to use his dairy meadows, which 
had hitherto been excluded from building. They were 
divided from the sands below them by much the same 
fascinating mixture of rock and wood as divided his own 
garden from the foreshore. This portion of the property 
he intended to convert into a cliff-garden for the new 
village, with a wide strip at the top to form a sort of 
garden-esplanade. The rest of the plateau he was going 
to cut up into streets, with building lots, which would 
chiefly be used for smaller houses, though no objection 
would be made to a purchaser buying several and running 
them into one for a better house. But these, he imagined, 
would chiefly be erected on the rocky hill above the 
plateau, because well-off people demand picturesqueness 
rather than convenience. He was willing to build houses 
on the time-payment system, to suit the purchaser’s 
requirements as regards the accommodation, but the 
exterior of the houses had to be designed by his own 
architect, because they were all to be built after the 
various types of old houses to be found at Taormina, 
the said architect, a reputed descendant of Horace 
Walpole, having long cherished the ambition of getting 
some rich speculator to allow him to build a Taormina 
on the south coast of Devon. 

Mr. Ebbutt was not a building speculator, but he was 
willing to finance Horace Jones in his project, when Mr. 
Lorraine had assured him that Mr. H. W. Jones was a 
competent architect, who had made a study of Taormina 
for many years. Building a Taormina supplied him with 
a more complete incursion into his beloved Middle Ages 
than he had contemplated in his wildest moments. 

To show intending purchasers of houses what they 


The Founding of the New Taormina 233 

might expect, Mr. Jones was to be allowed to proceed with 
the street nearest the cliff-gardens, taking care to represent 
as many as possible of the types which were to be used, 
not forgetting a Palazzo Corvaia, and a convent of Santa 
Caterina, suitable for large boarding-houses or cheap 
hotels, but to be used in the first instance as sanatoria 
for wounded officers. 

A feature of Mr. Ebbutt’s new health resort was to 
be that on the plateau there should be no boarding-house 
or hotel which charged above certain very moderate 
rates. The expensive hotels were to be limited to the top 
of the hill, to which properly-graded roads would be made 
for the use of motor-cars. 

Mr. Jones had his project thought out in every detail. 
Chief among these was the cost of building, a subject on 
which he was very practical. Remembering that a large 
number of the houses at Taormina are built of the rough 
stone of the place, which is very hard, faced with a durable 
rough-cast plaster, he had made a study of Italian rough- 
cast plasters, to find one capable of resisting the English 
climate. Having been successful in this, he proposed to 
build his new Taormina with the rough limestone of the 
Seacombe district. 

The beautiful windows of Taormina Gothic, whose arches 
are very simple and inexpensive, would, of course, have 
to be made of a better stone, but these, when the war 
was over, he intended to import ready-made from a Tuscan 
seaport. The masons for starting the work were Sicilian 
refugees from Germany, who had been employed in 
building a Sicilian village for an exhibition in a suburb of 
Hamburg, and had been ill-treated because Italy would 
not join Germany in the war. Mr. Ebbutt offered them 
employment for the period of the war, and started his 
new Taormina in this piecemeal fashion, thoroughly in 
accordance with Sicilian traditions. 

The new village, standing as it did on a plateau facing 
due south, with an amphitheatre of hill behind to protect 
it from northerly winds, and the great mass of the Giant’s 
Head protecting it from the west, the stormy quarter in 
winter, occupied an ideal site for a winter resort. The 


234 


Grace Lorraine 


virtues of Seacombe as a summer resort had already been 
recognized by the lovers of the picturesque. 

Mr. Ebbutt, who had built a model city near Cincinnati 
for his thousands of workmen, formed most ambitious 
plans for rearing his new Taormina on the hillside, and 
for the exploitation of Via Pacis. 

In the first place, he intended to make his new town 
a model health resort. He would not only regulate the 
prices for board ; he also meant to assure the hotel- 
keepers and pension-keepers of a supply of fish and 
poultry, fruit and vegetables, at very moderate prices, 
while assuring the prosperity of the people who produced 
them by starting a depot which took all they caught or 
produced at a fixed price, to be sold in a market at a 
small fixed profit. 

The fishermen and the agriculturists would be better off 
than they had ever been, and the consumer would get what 
he required at a reduction in price of which he had never 
dreamed. 

When the new Taormina was ready, visitors would find 
that the improvement in the accommodation at Sea- 
combe was equal to the improvement in the markets. 
The houses were to be let at a moderate rent, but there 
was a proviso in the lease that there should be a fixed 
tariff per room for visitors, in each grade of house, and the 
houses, like their prototypes in Taormina, were to contain 
no rooms which were not of a good size, and with adequate 
windows. 

Mr. Ebbutt, who had made his model town near Cincinnati 
a success, paying far higher rates for labour and materials, 
was not afraid of what this experiment was costing him. 

Mr. Ebbutt had never been in Italy. In laying out the 
new Taormina he had to use the eyes, the experience, the 
imagination of Mr. Lorraine, who, having lost a fortune 
while he was playing with his Fellowship of Via Pacis, 
approached his new task with passionate interest, and 
had some fresh enthusiasm about it for Grace’s ears at 
every meal. And Grace, though she was unwilling to go 
and hang about the rising town with her father and Mr. 
Ebbutt and the architect, was full of questions about it. j 


The Founding of the New Taormina 235 

The thing which interested her most was the open-air 
theatre, in which Horace Jones hoped to reproduce some 
of the great effects of the immortal theatre at Taormina. 
He thought that the horseshoe-shaped hollow on the 
extreme right of the hill behind the town could be scooped 
out into a suitable auditorium. Mr. Ebbutt fully intended 
it to be used for open-air plays. 

The stage was, of course, a simpler matter ; that had 
to be built up on the plateau, and there was plenty of 
old red sandstone in Devonshire. Everything seemed 
all right. The architect had begun to talk rather largely 
about it, when Mr. Lorraine, who was not quite satisfied 
in his mind, took the plans home to show Grace, the 
only person at Via Pacis, except himself, the architect, 
and Mr. Sylvester, who had ever seen the theatre of 
Taormina. 

Grace put her finger on the weak spot at once. The 
glory of Taormina is the view of the Strait of Messina 
which the spectator sitting in the auditorium has as a 
background for the stage. The spectator seated in the 
auditorium of Mr. Jones’s theatre at Via Pacis would 
not, behind the stage, see the splendid mouth of the inlet, 
between the two great capes, tremendous bastions built 
by Nature of giant boulders of basalt. All he would see 
between the columns at the back of the stage would be 
the local golf-links. 

Moreover, as he would be looking more or less east, 
he would have his back to the sunset effects between the 
two great capes. 

Mr. Lorraine took the plans home at lunch. That 
afternoon, when he was taking them back to the Manor 
House, where Mr. Ebbutt and the architect were awaiting 
him for a further discussion, and final approval of the 
plans, Mr. Ebbutt was astonished to see Grace, who had 
never entered the house since he took it over, accompany- 
ing her father. 

She greeted him, too, with something like cordiality, 
and asked if she might talk Sicily and the open-air theatre 
to the architect. 

" Why, yes,” said Mr. Ebbutt. “ You’re the very 


236 


Grace Lorraine 


one we want to hear, considering as how you’ve seen it, 
and your puppa has seen it, and Mr. Jones here has seen 
it, and your puppa and Mr. Jones are not quite agreed. 
What is your decision ? ” 

“ Well, I think it ought to be on the very left of the 
hill instead of on the very right.” 

“ Impossible, my dear lady, impossible ! ” said the 
glib Mr. Jones. “ I’ve considered that point already. 
But the slope of the hill breaks off too soon ; you couldn't 
get the horseshoe for the auditorium.” 

“ Have you ever been to Segesta, Mr. Jones ? ” 

“ Yes.” He said it rather with the air of a professor 
whose statement has been challenged by one of his class. 

“ Don’t you remember that the architect of the theatre 
there had the same difficulty before him as you have ? ” 

“ Did he ? ” he said loftily. 

“Yes, of course he did, and met it — partly by throwing 
up a mound, and partly by that great containing wall.” 

“ Is that so ? ” asked Mr. Ebbutt. 

“ Oh, yes,” said the architect off-handedly. “ But 
I didn’t wish to put you to that expense for nothing.” 

“ Expense, I told you, young sir, does not come in, 
if it is not for nothing. That doesn’t sound much as 
grammar,” he said, turning to Grace, “ but if you can 
show me any good reason for putting the theatre at that 
end of the hill, expense isn’t going to count.” 

“ Well, do you think that the Greeks, if they had had 
the chance of putting that theatre where the stage would 
have the two capes and the open sea and the sunset 
for its background, would have put it anywhere else, 
Mr. Jones ? ” She had addressed him again, because 
she saw that Mr. Ebbutt wished to hear them argue it 
out fairly and squarely, and not to be defered-to himself. 

“ I hadn’t thought of the sunset,” admitted Mr. Jones, 
who had spent so many years in the study of Taormina. 

“ Do those I-talians we’re employing know anything 
about this mound-and-wall business, Mr. Jones ? ” asked 
Mr. Ebbutt. 

“ Oh, yes — they’re doing it all the time at home.” 

“ Then I guess we’ll have to do it here — that’s settled.” 


The Founding of the New Taormina 237 

The architect was accustomed to these interferences 
from Mr. Ebbutt. Mr. Ebbutt, after all, had success- 
fully created a town of several thousand inhabitants, 
and since he confined himself to practical questions, such 
as site and expense, there was nothing to ruffle pro- 
fessional dignity in it. 

Added to which, he knew that Grace was right. Her 
instinct for the correct site was unerring. As a reward 
for confessing himself wrong, he hoped for the constant 
presence of this lovely woman while he was laying out 
the theatre. He invited it on the grounds that two 
heads were better than one in remembering “ local 
colour,” and Grace promised to come. 

She even met Horace Jones half-way, by saying : 
“ Before you begin-on my suggestion, we might call in 
Mr. Sylvester — he knows Sicily inside-out.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV 

MR. EBBUTT’S PLANS FOR THE NEW TAORMINA AND AN 
ARTHURIAN OBERAMMERGAU 

H ERE at last was a common ground on which Mr. 

Ebbutt could hope to meet her. On the first day 
he had some hesitation in coming ; he did not feel certain 
if her amiability would have lasted. But she received 
him as if she were the interloper, and not he, and in the 
long intervals when the architect had nothing to say to 
her because he was occupied with calculations or getting 
practical details from Mr. Sylvester, he found himself 
in tete-d,-tete conversations with her. 

His natural diffidence with ladies had served him well. 
While she was talking with the others he had been 
standing a little way off, following their conversation 
attentively, but not speaking until his decision was 
invited. When they left her for the first time, Mr. Ebbutt 
did not come nearer to her to take their place, but stood 
where he was, and followed the architect’s movements 
with his eyes, until Grace addressed him with some obser- 
vation which was perfectly futile in itself, but was a signal 
of amity — the moment for which he had been waiting for 
many months. 

After a few minutes of mutual politeness, she said, 
“You are doing a big thing here, Mr. Ebbutt. Tell me 
the general idea of it.” 

“ My general ideas are : first, that I want this wonderful 
site to bring health and happiness to increasing numbers 
of people ; second, that the present village round the 

238 


An Arthurian Oberammergau 239 

corner is totally unworthy of the site, and not the sort 
of township in which the Fellowship of Via Pacis ought 
to be lo-cated ; third, that I want the new town to go 
one better than any other new town in the world, and be 
an embellishment to the property — not an eyesore, as 
most new health resorts are.” 

“ All excellent ideas.” 

“ I advertised for an architect to carry out this notion, 
and Jones here seemed to have the best scheme to offer, 
so I engaged him. He had been hawking round this idea 
of erecting a Taormina” — he pronounced it Tar-miner 
— “ in England as the bee in his bonnet, but he could 
not find anyone who wanted to build a town, except at 
Bootle, where the conditions were not favourable for a 
Tar-miner. But when I found that Tar-miner meant 
the Middle Ages, I agreed to close with him right there, 
if his references were satisfactory.” 

“You are not putting it up purely as a building specu- 
lation to improve the property which you have bought ? ” 

“ Not at all. I don’t expect it to pay me for some 
years — if ever. But I have to have a town here for my 
own purposes, and I mean to have a top-hole one, the 
best thing of its kind that ever was put up.” 

“ Tell me more about your purposes, Mr. Ebbutt ? ” 

“ Oh, that’s a long story ! ” 

“ Never mind that,” she said, feeling that she had 
a long leeway of ungraciousness to make up. 

“Well, first I want to make life better all round for 
the people here, including myself.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ What do I find here ? A place with a climate and 
natural aspects second to none in England. The Fellow- 
ship of Via Pacis, some living in the monastery, some, 
who have done better for themselves, with houses of 
their own scattered round. That’s good. These people, 
the heads of the families, are all producing under special 
facilities something for the world — books or music or 
paintings, etcetera, etcetera. But there’s no reason why 
they should be buried and I should be buried and Mr. 
Wynyard should be buried — shut up in a box with a 


240 


Grace Lorraine 


handful of fishermen who can just read and write — except 
for the few weeks when visitors come here in summer. 
This place ought to be residential, like Torquay.” 

“ What do you mean by residential ? ” 

“ People living here all the year round — winter and 
summer. You could not have a better winter place than 
this in the British Islands.” 

“ But, unfortunately you can't make people come and 
reside in a place ! ” 

“ That’s just the point — you can ! You’ve only got 
to prove to them that they can get more for their money, 
of just exactly what they want, from you than from any- 
body else, and they’ll just flock round.” 

“ But how are you going to prove it to them ? ” 

“ Advertise, ma’am, same as I advertised the ‘ common- 
sense china.’ I’ll have the advertysement of Vi’ Pacis, 
the Devonshire Tar-miner — how do you call it ? ” 

“ Via Pacis, the Devonshire Taormina.” 

“ Vi’pacis in one word, please — Vi’pacis, the Devon- 
shire Tarmeener, with that barn — until there’s a general 
view to preesent — on an eight-sheet poster, playcarded 
in every reasonable railway station in Great Britain.” 

“ Why, the advertising will cost you a fortune ! ” 

“ I don’t care what it costs me. I’m going on with it 
until the Devonshire Tarmeener is a paying proposition.” 

“ I don’t think I quite understand how you are going 
to make people come here, especially the sort of people 
you want.” 

“I’m going to give them something better than they 
can get elsewhere.” 

“ But how ? I mean, how are you going to make them 
see it ? ” 

“ In the first place, I’m going to give it them without 
leaving England, and they can’t leave England till the 
war’s over, nor after without more money than they’d 
have to spend here.” 

“ Yes, but what are you going to give them ? ” 

“ A town to live in, a tolerable imitation of the other 
Tarmeener, the I-talian Tarmeener, in climate, in views — 
not so good, of course, but still, something — and as far 


An Arthurian Oberammergau 241 

as Mr. Jones can make it, in the personal appearance of 
the houses.” 

“ Yes, that’s good, and undoubtedly there are some 
people who’ll be attracted if they hear of it.” 

“ But that’s only the smaller part of it. I’m going to 
make it, in rent and food — two things which people who 
have to look at a shilling twice before they spend it have 
to regard most — the cheapest place to live at in England.” 

“Now that is something. But how are you going 
to do it ? ” 

He explained his plans for regulating rents and prices 
for lodgings, and the acquiring and selling of market 
produce, so that food would cost the people who lived at 
the new Taormina about one half of what it would in any 
other town. 

“ But what will you do about drapers and grocers and 
shoemakers, and so on ? ” she asked. 

“ I will get a man down from Rochdale to establish a 
co-operative store, on the principle which divides the 
profits among the customers at the end of the year.” 

“ Well, that sounds practical,” she said. “ That ought 
to bring people.” 

“ It will, Miss Lorraine, it will ! For the man with the 
small, fixed income, who needs a mild climate, will be 
able to live here on his remittance better than he could 
anywhere else in Great Britain. It's the people of 
gentility, who, because they are poor, have to live in such 
miserable surroundings, that I specially want to benefit.” 

“ But is the whole place to be populated with them ? ” 

“By no means. I want to make it the best health 
resort in England, where people can get tip-top advantages 
for small money — where the same sort of people who are 
rather better off, and can live all right, but are badly 
pinched for a good holiday, can lay out their money to 
the best advantage, because there’ll be no profiteering. 
And the poor residents won’t suffer by the place bein£ 
full because I shall control all the food, and take no more 
for it than will make it pay expenses.” 

“ I think it will be very successful on these lines, for 
the residents. But you will have a very long bill to pay.” 

16 


242 


Grace Lorraine 


" I don’t think it, Miss Lorraine, but if I have, I have 
a ver-ry long purse.” 

“ Tell me your other plans,” she said pleasantly. 

“ Well, these people have got to be amused. I shall 
give them a library, a winter-garden, a gymnasium, a 
cinema-hall under my own control — there is a golf-course 
already, to which I shall add lawns for croquet and tennis 
and bowls. These things may be pretty ordinary in a 
health resort. But what I shall give them besides — and 
they wouldn’t get in any other place of the kind — is a 
special theatre, in the old barn which I have had re- 
roofed.” 

“ Theatres are difficult and costly things to run, and if 
you are founding your Taormina for badly-off people, the 
money they are able to pay for tickets would go no way 
towards keeping up the theatre.” 

" I don’t expect it to. I guess I shall have to put up 
the money for that myself. It will take too long to tell 
you now about the plans I’ve made for giving them ordinary 
plays at ordinary times. But it will be in connection with 
an academy of the drama which I’m going to establish, 
for a sort of national scheme I have in view.” 

“ National, Mr. Ebbutt ? You take my breath away 
with the size of your projects ! ” 

“ I’m accustomed to size, ma’am. There isn’t a town 
in the U-nited States or Canady which has a store that 
amounts to a row of pins where you can’t buy my ‘ common- 
sense china.’ I’ve thousands of agents, not only travelling, 
but located.” 

“ What is your national scheme for the drama, .Mr. 
Ebbutt ? The last one was in connection with the 
Shakespeare Tercentenary.” 

“ Well, what put it into my mind was that when I was 
motoring through Somersetshire on my way down to buy 
this place, I stopped at a place called Glastonbury, because 
there was an inn there that was four hundred years old — 
the guest-house of the old monastery, they told me. The 
whole town appeared to be upside-down, with a musical 
festival. I asked them why Glastonbury should have a 
musical festival, and they told me that the Holy Grail 


An Arthurian Oberammergau 243 

was discovered there. Not being an ^idicated man, I 
thought it might be some kind of a microbe, but they told 
me that it was not so, but had something to do with King 
Arthur, and the festival had something to do with King 
Arthur, and Bernard Shaw, whoever he is. They seemed 
to think much more of Bernard Shaw being in the theatre, 
than King Arthur, so I took a ticket. I understood that 
the troupe consisted partly of the virtuous peasants of 
Glastonbury, like that German place which sounds some- 
thing like ‘ ran over the cow/ ” 

“ Oberammergau, you mean.” 

“Yes, that’s it, but I couldn’t get it until you minded 
me — and partly of * star ’ actors. But I couldn’t see any 
of either with the naked eye. There was no scenery to 
speak of, except a slot for children who wanted chocolates 
to stick nickels in, though I didn’t see what chocolates 
had to do with King Arthur, except that there’s a place 
called Cadbury in Somersetshire and King Arthur was in 
Somersetshire, and also King Alfred, but I thought it was 
cakes and not chocolates that they were cooking when the 
cook slang-whanged the King for letting them get burnt. 
Anyhow, they stuck a sword in the slot, and only King 
Arthur could pull it out, and the rest of the play hung 
on that. The music was ‘ future ’ they said, and the 
dresses were ‘ future,’ and there was nothing else in it ; 
there wasn’t even ‘ future ’ scenery.” 

“ That festival is really quite good. But you didn’t 
like it, Mr. Ebbutt ? ” 

“ Like it ? Christmas in jail ! — how could anybody like 
a thing like that ? But I was wrong in saying there was 
nothing in it, because it put into my mind what I am 
coming to. What’s the name of that German place 
again ? ” 

“ Oberammergau.” 

“ Oberammergau is sound, and King Arthur is sound, as 
an ancient British yarn, but they hadn’t got on the right 
track about it. Instead of that music and comedy, they 
ought to have given a play upon King Arthur, made up 
from what Tennyson wrote about him — I’ve read it, in 
* Stories from Tennyson for Children,’ and I thought it 

iu* 


244 


Grace Lorraine 


fine, almost like Gospel. They ought to have set the best 
writers and the best theatrical costoomiers, and splendid 
and beautiful actors and actresses, on to it, and produced 
something which would make the world gasp, like that 
Oberammergau business, using the natives for supers, as 
the people who looked on and wondered, while King Arthur 
and his Knights did all those things, which didn’t all of 
them seem possible to me.” 

“ I think you’re rather hard on the humour of those 
people at Glastonbury, Mr. Ebbutt. If you’re giving a 
costume-play ...” 

“ There wasn’t any costoom to speak of.” 

“ Oh, no, costume-plays don’t mean that — costume- 
plays only mean pieces whose scenes are not laid in our 
own time, but generally in Charles the Second’s.” 

“ With wigs and flopping top-boots ? I know, Miss 
Lorraine. I’ll pass costooms.” 

“ Well, costume-plays, Mr. Ebbutt, must have a little 
humour to lighten them sufficiently for a general 
audience.” 

“ Nothing easier, ma’am, in the case of King Arthur 
and his Knights of the Round Table. In the first instance, 
you might have a little table-turning. But if that won’t 
do, because it’s not sufficiently obvious to the audience 
with bad footlights, what’s the matter with Sir Parsifal 
towing an air-balloon made in the shape of a dirigible, and 
introdoocing another Knight, not on the register in ‘ The 
Mortuary ’ . . .” 

“ Oh, Mr. Ebbutt ! ” cried Grace, with tears starting 
from the outside corners of her eyes, “Not ‘ Mortuary ’ — 
* Morte d’ Arthur ’ / ” 

“ Well, that was as near as I could get it — and the name 
of that noo Knight is Sir Zeppelin, towing another air- 
balloon in the shape of a dirigible, and claiming to have 
reached the top-hole in that show ? He and Sir Parsifal 
might have a sort of bolster-fight with their old air-balloons, 
in the style of the jester, Sir Drag-net, or some name of 
that kind, that I saw thumping people with a bladder at 
Glastonbury.” 

“ Sir Dagonet ! ”j ( \ 


An Arthurian Oberammergau 245 

“ Oh, that’s all right — we needn’t follow out the idea. 
There’s great scope in it, if we must have humour.” 

“ Oh, no,” said Grace, still convulsed. “ For heaven’s 
sake, spare us that humour ! ” 

“ Why, certainly, ma’am. I was only doing it to oblige. 
Shall we decide to be serious now ? ” 

“ I think we’d better,” she said with a sigh. 

“ Well, my idea is to have a dramatic festival here every 
year, in the month of August, when there will be most 
visitors here, to spread talk about it when they go home. 
The parts of King Arthur and his Queen, and her lover 
Sir . . .” 

“ Sir Lancelot.” 

“ Yes, Sir Lancelot, and the other Queen and 1 her 
lover ...” 

“ Queen Iseult and Sir Tristram,” she said. 

" I suppose so, but I can’t exactly remember — and any 
others whose names most people know . . . tell me some 
of them.” 

“ Such as the Bold Sir Bedivere, and the traitor, Sir 
Modred, and a woman or two, like Elaine and the Lady 
of Shalott ? ” 

“ Oh, my hat ! Did he know that shalot is a kind of 
onion ? ” 

“ Of course he knew, but his head was so much in the 
clouds that he never connected the two things.” 

“ It’s my fault. Well, just those sort of people must 
all be represented by beautiful young men and women, 
the best actors we can get from London, whose appearance 
is suitable — nothing middle-aged engaged for its voice. 
And in our little barn — if the weather is bad we must have 
the show in there — we’ll have the scenery, all we've got 
room for, top-hole. But we’ll hope that it will be fine 
enough to have it out in the Greek or Roman theatre, with 
the Saxon galleys sailing up the estuary — our fishermen 
friends will do for that, though they won’t like their boats 
having dragons stuck on their fronts, and sails that look 
like blinds with a gale blowing in at the window.” 

“ I think you’re going to let a little humour creep in, 
Mr. Ebbutt.” 


246 Grace Lorraine 

“ We’ll trust to unconscious humour, ma’am — it’s always 
the best.” 

“ But what’s the object of this King Arthur play, Mr. 
Ebbutt ? If you thought the Glastonbury opera such a 
. . . such a . . . shall we call it a misfire ? ” 

“ I think it would be enough if you call it a miss-cue — 
actors are always talking about their cues.” He continued 
quite seriously, “ Well, it’s just this, Miss Lorraine, I think 
they’ve got hold of quite the right idea in making the King 
Arthur leege nd the business of the festival, especially there, 
where part of the very dust of the place came from 
Queen ...” 

“ Queen Guinevere.” 

“ Queen Guinevere’s hair, as discovered by King 
Edward I., I think they told me it was. But they didn’t 
make the best of it. That would have been the real place 
for a King Arthur Over — Oberammergau, or a King 
Arthur Louis-Parker-pageant. But they won’t do it there ; 
they want Glastonbury to be . . .” 

“ A Bayreuth, not an Oberammergau.” 

“So we must have our shot at making a national play 
of it, with professional actors and actresses for the 
romantic parts, and trying to train up the people of the place 
for the other parts. But the great point of all is that I 
want to utilize the talents of the Fellowship of Via Pacis 
in producing the play. I want its artists to paint the 
scenes, under the superintendence of one of the great 
scene-painters ; I want one of its musicians to compose 
incidental music, and one of its authors to write the play 
each year. We mustn’t have the same play every year — 
we might make a different ‘ Ideal of the King ’ — — ” 

“ Idyll of the King.” 

“ — The subject each year, which would make a series of 
six, or perhaps eight, of them, and then begin again. And 
in this way we should be connecting the work of the 
Fellowship with the annual dramatic festival of Via Pacis, 
which would gradually become an institution like the 
things at the Albert Hall — being combined with a very 
cheap holiday at the most beautiful health resort in 
England.” 


An Arthurian Oberammergau 247 

“ I should think it might.” 

“ At any rate, it would give the talent at the Fellowship 
its chance of distinguishing itself in those applied arts like 
scene-painting, which give a good living in these days of 
cinema-production to those who could never sell a picture. 
Confining the writing and the painting and the music to 
the members of the Fellowship will make it a genu wine 
Via Pacis production, which will be another way of letting 
the world know of the work of the Fellowship. 

“ But I must have bored you stiff with my plans, Miss 
Lorraine — I won’t add another word.” 

“ Indeed you have not, Mr. Ebbutt, but your plans are 
so vast that I can’t tell you what I think of them until I 
have thought about them a little more.” 

“ Here’s Jones,” he said. “ The trouble about Jones is 
that he talks over my head. I have to let him do what he 
wants to, and make him undo it again if it’s not what I 
want. I wish you were my architect, Miss Lorraine.” 

“ I ? ” She coloured painfully, and made an excuse 
and left him. 


CHAPTER XXXV 

GRACE EXAMINES HERSELF 

S HE bit her lip and stamped with rage as soon as she 
was out of sight and earshot. Why must he intro- 
duce the personal equation the moment that she relaxed 
the state of ostracism in which she had kept him ? Her 
instinct had been right : the hail-fellow-well-met relations 
which he had established with every household in the 
Fellowship ought to have warned her that the only way to 
restrain the Western free-and-easiness from overstepping 
the line was to keep this irrepressible man outside her life 
altogether. 

It was just because she had forgotten the personal 
equation in her anxiety about the reproduction of the 
great Taormina theatre, that she had gone with her 
father to meet him and take part in the discussion. And 
now he had thrown back their chances of an ordinary 
friendship or acquaintanceship almost indefinitely. 

For a whole week she spent her entire days down at the 
Giant’s Head, sketching with Jane, blissfully unconscious 
of where the sketches would go when they were completed. 
And when she did get home, in time for tea, she had it in 
her own room, to avoid all risks of a chance meeting with 
her bete noire. 

But he was conscious that he had transgressed, and had 
resisted all Mr. Lorraine’s attempts to bring him into the 
Abbot’s Lodging when they returned from their labours. 

* * * * :jc * 

248 


Grace examines Herself 


249 


When Grace learned this, from old Martha’s scolding her 
for leaving her father day after day to have his tea alone, 
she began to fear that she had been too precipitate. After 
all, perhaps what he had intended to convey was no more 
than that he would have liked her to be his architect because 
she did not use technical language in the discussion, though 
she was sure that Mr. Sylvester, who knew a great deal 
more about it than she did, would talk to him in plain 
language. 

Although it had terminated so tragically, the discussion 
had left her with a great respect for the shy, awkward 
Westerner, who had such a fund of drollery under his 
rugged exterior. He might mispronounce ludicrously ; 
he might show his ignorance at every turn. But she had 
never met a man — never even heard of a man — with such 
generous ideas. He was going to be a sort of universal 
benefactor in that poor and out-of-the-way part of Devon. 
There was something which appealed to her imagination 
in the very unfitness of his appearance, now. Since he was 
a droll, she had less objection to his tall, slim (which he 
would have called slab-sided) figure being apparelled in a 
smart London calling suit while he stood on a wild sea-coast 
in one of the most uninhabited parts of South Devon, 
superintending the erection of a new Taormina. It seemed 
part of the character of a “ Yankee at the Court of King 
Arthur.” 

And now that she had had time to go over things, there 
had been no evidence of any sort that any of this gigantic 
scheme was for his own glorification. The only occasion 
on which the question of advertisement had come in 
was when she had asked how he was going to make 
the horses drink after he had taken them to the water, 
and he had explained that he was going to do it by 
advertising. And then he was not talking of advertising 
himself, but of advertising the merits of his new health- 
resort system. 

The feature which struck her most in the flood of plans 
to which she had listened was his earnestness in the whole 
matter. With him it was not a speculation or a hobby ; 
it was more like a social reformer’s creed. It was an 


250 


Grace Lorraine 


Utopian ideal. And he had the wealth to put it to the test, 
and, it seemed also, the town-building experience to give 
the scheme a chance. 

Yes, she was very interested in this wild and woolly 
enthusiast, if only he would leave his personal admiration 
for her out of the question, and think of her as a mind whose 
body had been eliminated from human sight by the wearing 
of an Arab necromancer’s ring. 

What was she doing ? Why was she, Grace Lorraine, 
devising new schemes of amelioration with the man whose 
existence she had been trying to forget ever since he 
came to Via Pacis ? 

The fact was that unconsciously she had become his 
disciple. She had been attacked by the reforming 
microbe and her mind was in a fever. For one thing, it 
helped her to forget how deeply Roger had wounded her. 
It brought her back into the workaday world, where 
wounds are dealt and endured in silence, as she had endured 
hers, and are likewise recognized as part of the inscrutable 
plan of the All-wise. 

Little by little she was persuaded that she had behaved 
unjustifiably, and to show her repentance for being hasty 
with that self-effacing millionaire, she hunted up a sketch 
which she had painted of the theatre of Taormina, which 
illustrated the point she had been making of the back- 
ground for the stage, since behind the rosy columns you 
could see the vast snow-mantled shoulders of Mount 
Etna, and the long curves of colour which swept round 
its base — the grey-green of the cactus, the brown of the 
rocks, the yellow of the sand, and the blue of the Ionian 
Sea. It showed the combination of colour and form, 
of Art and Nature, which confers upon the theatre of 
Taormina its immortal beauty. 

She determined to take it to him some morning at 
the place where he was working. 

If Grace had maintained her total embargo of Mr. 
Ebbutt, he could have endured it better. But when she 
had seemingly triumphed over her aversion, and had 
shown an interest which amounted almost to an en- 
thusiasm in his affairs, and all seemed fair sailing, it was 


Grace examines Herself 251 

paralysing to be driven right back into the weeds of the 
Sargasso Sea. 

If it had not been for Mr. Sylvester, Richmond Ebbutt 
would have lost all heart in the matter of that Graeco- 
Roman theatre, and allowed Horace Jones to work in 
variations like a fantasia on “ Lohengrin/’ But Brooke 
Sylvester, to whom Grace habitually showed a better side 
of herself than she deigned to anyone else, though he 
did not or would not see that she would have accepted 
him as a husband if he had asked her, was so devoted to 
his beautiful disciple that he steeled Mr. Ebbutt against 
every deviation suggested by the architect. He even 
offered to persuade Grace to come back and help in the 
direction. But Mr. Ebbutt would not have her harassed 
to return, though he went there every day to see if she 
would repent and come. 

He hoped against hope, until one day, a week and more 
later, as he stood on the spur of the hill which was to be 
built up into the open-air theatre, he was conscious of 
the figure of a woman coming across from the monastery. 
He had no need to look twice to know who it was — the 
elegance of her dress told him that ; she had clothes 
enough to keep her smart for two years in the country 
when she moved out of the Manor House. She was 
alone, and evidently looking for him, for she had left the 
road and was coming straight across the meadow. 

He advanced to meet her with a feeling of exultation 
in his heart to which it was not accustomed. She had 
forgiven him, then, for the unwelcomed and unintended 
advance which he had made that day ? He would be 
very careful to-day. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Ebbutt,” she said. “ I came to 
bring you a sketch which I made at Taormina which bears 
out what I said about the view from the theatre. Will 
you look at it ? ” 

He opened the parcel. Being a woman, she had secured 
the string with a bow instead of a knot ; it only needed 
a pull to release it. 

The work of the sketch was not good — as a draughts- 
woman she had improved since she painted this. But if 


252 


Grace Lorraine 


she was not a skilful artist, she could present the object 
which she was sketching, as he knew from the pictures of 
hers which he had bought from the Seacombe bookseller. 

For a minute he had wild thoughts of confiding to her 
that he had bought them (even those which she had painted 
since their quarrel), but he had received a lesson for pre- 
sumption so recently that he checked himself, and 
contented himself with giving her the thanks due to her 
courtesy, only adding that the sketch confirmed her 
arguments, which was the most adroit thing he could 
have said. She desired his recognition of her victory 
over Mr. Jones, though she would not tolerate it in any 
other direction. 

“ I will let you have it back quite safely when I have 
shown it to Mr. Jones,” he said. 

“Oh, no — pray don't trouble. You can keep it. I 
have made other sketches and still have them by me.” 

“ Well, I can’t thank you sufficiently ” — he meant, 
“ I dare not.” 

“You have thanked me in a very practical manner,” 
she said. “You adopted my idea.” 

“ How could I do otherwise ? It was right.” He 
stopped hastily, fearing that he might have said too much, 
but she was still thinking of her battle with Mr. Jones. 
And shortly afterwards, being in cold blood to-day, she 
went home. 

Now it so happened that in one of her letters to Roger 
before the eventful day she had spoken derogatorily about 
Mr. Ebbutt, complaining that her father was always 
with him, and constantly bringing him to the house. 
“ He grates on me,” she said, “ because he is so manifestly 
out of place.” 

Roger wrote back to her : “I wish you wouldn’t speak 
of old Ebbutt like that. He’s a good chap, and I think 
he has accommodated himself to the situation jolly well. 
I wish you could try and be decent to him.” 

The letter made her very wrathful. What right had 
Roger to talk to her about behaving decently ? She 
was not using the word in its moral sense ; she merely 
meant, what right had Roger to preach to her about 


Grace examines Herself 


253 


behaving handsomely if things were as black as they 
looked against him ? 

But now, at last, she looked at the matter differently. 
She meant, in spite of what had happened, to fulfil her 
promise to Roger, and marry him if he could show her 
that he had acted up to his code. If his honour was 
safe, she would treat the deed as a trespass only. 

If she married him she would have to obey him, so 
she might as well try to learn to obey him now. Indeed, 
she felt that a girl who was engaged to a man, and who 
would have been married to him if the war had not torn 
him from her, was virtually his wife already. She wrote 
to tell him that she would honestly try to obey him, and 
she examined herself diligently to repent her of her former 
rudeness. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


THE OLIVE BRANCH 


HE very next time that her father brought Mr. 



l Ebbutt in to tea after working on the new hobby, 
Grace greeted him with distinctly more recognition. She 
asked him some interested questions, and suffered her- 
self to remember how he liked his tea without asking him. 

After tea she unbent more, and showed how well she 
understood him, for she said, “ Would you like to come 
into my work-room, Mr. Ebbutt, and see my Taormina 
photographs ? ” 

He kept a firm hand upon his cordiality, and said, “ It 
would be of ver-ry great service to me, especially if you 
explained them to me. I have never been anywhere 
except Americky and England, you must know.” 

“ Oh, yes, I’ll explain them to you, certainly.” 

She had several portfolios of richly-stamped crimson 
leather, with her initials and her father’s coat of arms on 
them (so incongruous in the present state of their fortunes), 
each containing about a hundred photographs, divided 
according to subject in parchment envelopes. 

“ My, what a lot of photographs you’ve got ! ” 

" You have at least twenty times as many.” 


(t 


Me? 


“Yes, you bought them with the house. I just took 
the ones that were my own, but I did not collect, like 
father.” 

He was just going to say, “ I’ll look them out and send 
them down to you,” when he remembered, and returned 


254 


The Olive Branch 255 

to the subject in hand, which was learning Taormina by 
photographs. 

Seeing how intelligent he was, and how eager he was — 
treating everything she told him with the same respect 
as he received Mr. Jones’s plans for building — she “ let 
herself go,” and dwelt enthusiastically on any detail in 
Taormina which had ravished her artist’s soul, and was 
suggested by the photographs. He could hardly believe 
that it was the same woman who had mechanically smiled, 
mechanically made tea for him, and mechanically 
answered his questions, when her father brought him to 
the house. 

As she warmed to her subject, he forgot his fears, not 
to the extent of trying to ingratiate himself, but only so 
far as allowing himself to appear in his natural light — 
quaint, humorous, uneducated, but so unaffected in his 
recognition of the fact that his ignorance was bliss to his 
audience ; with a clear native intelligence, a capacity to 
take an interest in almost anything ; and a beautiful 
humility which enabled him to forget his own colossal 
achievements, and envy those who had been able to give 
their lives to struggling in any artistic profession. 

“ I am a tradesman,” he said. “ I belong to the lowest 
order of profitable human beings. The agriculturist comes 
higher than I do because he has to establish an under- 
standing with Nature before he can make the earth 
give her increase. You cannot work Nature with 
advertisements same as I worked the U-nited States and 
Canady.” 

“ But you gave them a good thing in your ‘ common- 
sense china,’ Mr. Ebbutt.” They had been using it at 
the Fellowship of Via Pacis for the past two months. 

“Yes, ma’am — you can't do big advertising without 
the thing’ll stand it. That’s an aximum, and in the 
long run aximums go further than maximums.” 

The photograph of the Badia Vecchia, proclaiming to 
the heavens from the steep hillside the beauty and the 
ruin of Sicily, with the most beautiful Gothic arches in 
the world, overwhelmed the rough Westerner with a rush 
of feeling. 


256 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I’m going to have that summer-house in my Tarmeener 
if it costs me every red cent I have ! Do you think that 
Jones could duplicate it for me, Miss Lorraine ? ” 

“ I don’t know what Mr. Jones’s capacity is, but no 
one in England would dream of entrusting a young archi- 
tect with it — we should go to a man like Graham Jackson, 
who has proved his capacity to do it by building new 
Gothic monuments worthy to stand beside the old at 
Oxford.” 

“ Mr. Jackson . . 

“ Sir Thomas.” 

“ Sir Thomas Jackson — that’s the idea. I’ll get an 
estimate from him to do it.” 

“ It will cost you thousands of pounds.” 

“ Some of that will come off the account for the 
advertising. Think of the advertyzement with that 
picture reproduced in three colours as the Gothic Look- 
out of the Devonshire Tarmeener ! I’m sorry as how 
Jones can’t have the order — when he hears about it he’ll 
be as mad as Nebuchadnezzar when he was told to keep 
off the grass. But it’s better as you say, and anyhow, 
you’ve said it.” 

This was verging dangerously near the line of compli- 
ments, but she was absorbed in the thought of how glorious 
those arches would look to the voyagers on the great liners 
faring up and down the Channel, as they passed the mouth 
of the inlet, between its giant capes, if the tower was 
built of the same black and white as the immortal Badia 
Vecchia on the slopes of Monte Venere at Taormina. 

“ Tell me about it, Miss Lorraine,” he said. 

“ There’s nothing to tell you about it, except that it is 
five or six hundred years old, and is as much more beau- 
tiful than the photograph as the grandest palm-tree would 
be than its photograph. It has just the beauty of a palm 
in the curves of its arches. I think that its architect 
must have seen four palm-trees in a row forming arches, 
and immortalized their curves in marble.” 

The highly-coloured girlish simile threw Mr. Ebbutt 
into fresh raptures, which he managed to restrain. 

Grace was thinking furiously. If her marriage was 


The Olive Branch 


257 


not to be a splendid one, with a man whose companion- 
ship would be a delight to the very doors of the grave, and 
whose wealth would enable her to visit all the famous 
places which she desired, and live with ideal surroundings 
— to fulfil the destiny which she had set before herself 
ever since she was old enough to have lovers — was she 
not confronted with an alternative ? 

Mr. Ebbutt’ s ideas filled her with an interest in life 
greater than any which she had lost. Was there ever 
such a fascinating scheme as this ? — to use wealth which 
set no limit to desires, for building an English Taormina 
in the most perfect scenery and climate of the South 
Devon coast ! To be associated with it appealed to her 
more than anything else which she could conceive, and 
it was abundantly clear that the more she chose to interest 
herself and interfere in the carrying of it out, the better 
he would be pleased. 

A woman’s instinct told her that she could have Mr. 
Ebbutt for a husband, and share the ownership of all his 
vast wealth, if she chose to lift her little finger. But 
that was exactly what she could not persuade herself 
to do. She was born the most fastidious of a race in whom 
the fastidiousness bred of their fine pedigree, great posses- 
sions, and exquisite surroundings had become hereditary, 
and she had only to compare Mr. Ebbutt with her fiance 
to realize how impossible it would be for her to share 
her home and her life with anything so crude as Mr. Ebbutt, 
abounding in noble instincts as he was. She could not 
have married Mr. Ebbutt even if she had not been engaged 
to the adorable Roger. 

But as Fate compelled her to live in the same village 
in the wilderness as the man who was engaged on the 
great enterprise, there was no reason why she should not 
give herself the delight of taking part in it, and Mr. Ebbutt 
the delight of being constantly in her presence and her 
thoughts. 

She went all through her Taormina photographs 
with him conscientiously, and when he had reluctantly 
arrived at the last one, said, “ Are there any questions 
you want to ask me about Taormina itself ? ” 


17 


258 


Grace Lorraine 


“ Hundreds — I should say thousands. Only I can’t 
think of many of them all at once.” 

“Oh, you dear simple man ! ” she said. “ Come to me 
whenever you think of one that concerns the building of 
your town. I am really very interested in it, and I will 
help you as much as I can.” 

He could not believe his ears, and losing all sense of 
prudence, poured forth his protestations of gratitude. 

As she was really burning to collaborate with him, she 
did not check him, but led the way back to her father in 
the library. 

“ I know most points that are likely to turn up about 
the Devonshire Tarmeener, Mr. Lorraine, I guess. Your 
daughter seems to know it inside-out.” 

Mr. Lorraine looked at his daughter ; he saw that an 
entente cordiale between her and his friend had been 
arranged, and was thankful. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


HOW ROGER WAS GIVEN A WEEK-END’S LEAVE FOR HIS 


MARRIAGE 


S the spring advanced, welcome reinforcements 



jT\ reached the British in the trenches of Flanders, 
where Roger was stationed. From having to be ready 
for the enemy day and night, with no relief except what 
they could give themselves by dividing themselves into 
watches, they grew strong enough to make the small 
surprise attacks by night on the enemy’s trenches, in 
which the British soldier almost as much as his Colonial 
cousin delights, and no one in his regiment delighted 
in them more than Roger, who loved an adventure, and 
had no sense of danger. 

Bombing gave him special pleasure, for his cricketer’s 
eye made him very expert in throwing bombs ; more than 
once he had caught the enemy’s bombs and thrown them 
back before they had time to explode. 

So often did he come back safe from these expeditions, 
which generally brought a tale of casualties, though they 
might punish the enemy twenty or a hundredfold, that 
the men thought that he bore a charmed life, and were 
ready to follow him to the end of the world. 

But they would have to do without him for five days, 
because the Colonel had given him a week-end’s leave to 
get married, in recognition of his gallantry. The Colonel 
remembered that Roger was engaged to the lovely girl 
to whom he had been introduced at their departure from 
Waterloo. 

Roger dashed off a letter in the wildest spirits : 


259 


17* 


260 


Grace Lorraine 


“ My own Grace, 

“ I am writing to give you the best news in the 
world. The Colonel is so pleased with me that he has 
given me a week-end of five days to come to * Blighty ’ 
and get married ! So we did not lose so very many 
months by my putting off getting that license. 

“ Isn’t it ripping ? We won’t make any misfire this 
time. I’ve got the license still, so we’ll get married the 
very day I come home. I’ll make my grand-guv’nor turn 
out, if it’s the middle of the night. As the posts take so 
long from over here, I daresay you’ll get me before you 
get my letter. Nothing can prevent us pulling it off this 
time, as I’m not going into the trenches again till I come 
home.” 

(The rest of the letter was taken up with bombing stories.) 

“ With millions of love, 

“ Always your affectionate 

" Roger.” 

Grace had a sheaf of misgivings to burden her delight 
in getting the letter. 

On the one hand, she was now truly in love with Roger, 
and her heart felt great throbs of emotion as she read 
of the incredible dangers which he seemed to plunge-into 
with such zest — which ought to have ben rewarded with a 
V.C., instead of marriage with a girl who was half inclined 
to draw back on the threshold. And on the other hand, 
she meant to know if he had acted up to his code about 
Hestia before she would allow herself to marry him. 

If Roger could forgive himself, she could forgive him. 
She was sure that Roger would never have fallen if he had 
not been the victim of some such circumstances as she 
had imagined. But it was not only a question of how he 
felt — humanum est errare — but of how he felt sufficiently 
freed from his guilt afterwards to be able to let his marriage 
with her go through. It was easier for her to forgive a 
man, with his happy-go-lucky nature, for getting into 
trouble, than to forgive his getting out again by not 
being sufficiently careful not to add to the other person's 
misfortune. 


Roger’s Week-end from France 261 

That Roger could have done such a thing she did not 
believe, but she must have his own word for it. 

There would be another terrible moment for her when 
she had to let him know that Hestia had been betrayed 
to her already, and that therefore he would not be guilty 
of treason to Hestia in explaining his conduct. Satisfy 
her he must, or it would be the end of all things between 
them. 

What she feared most was not that he would have 
acted unforgivably, but that he would refuse to discuss a 
matter of such delicacy in which Hestia was involved, 
for if he would not speak she could not save him. 

The letter did reach her before he did, and Mr. Ebbutt’s 
car conveyed her and his mother to meet each of the two 
trains a day from London which stopped at Seacombe 
Road. 

For three days they did this, but when the second 
train on the third day came and went with no Roger, 
making the fifth day from the posting of his letter, they 
sorrowfully gave up meeting the train until they had word 
of him. 

The easiest excuse which they could frame for them- 
selves was that the Germans had made one of their great 
attacks, stopping all leave — and also stopping all letters, 
lest secrets valuable to the enemy should leak out. 

Mr. Ebbutt motored into Plymouth, and heard from 
Mr. Skewen, who was his lawyer as well as Mr. Lorraine’s, 
that wounded men were coming into the town from a 
heavy action in the part of France where they knew 
Roger to be, because an East Surrey officer, wounded in 
an earlier action, had smuggled an uncensored letter to 
Grace. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


HOW FRIENDSHIP BEGAN BETWEEN GRACE LORRAINE 
AND MR. EBBUTT 

A YEAR and more had passed since Roger had been 
reported missing, and entirely disappeared. 

Though it was still spring by the calendar, it was 
summer at Via Pacis, where the daffodils were blooming 
in armies like the asphodels at Taormina. 

One long street following the curve of the coast had 
risen from the apple orchard of Via Pacis, and as the 
trees had been spared wherever it was possible, they 
had bathed it in blossom as the almonds bathe the slopes 
of Taormina. It was the front street, roughly repro- 
ducing the main street of Taormina. 

The theatre was there, too, and the old clock-tower 
in the centre, and two little churches, hardly bigger than 
private chapels. The materials for these were at hand. 
There was an island in the inlet, belonging to the estate 
which was covered with unsightly stone heaps, on which 
nothing seemed to grow but stinging-nettles. It had 
been a castle guarding the harbour, until the Lorraine 
of the day tried to hold it against Oliver Cromwell, who 
had first battered it and then blown it to pieces. The 
old grey stones lay there undisturbed, because the farmers 
and villagers could not steal them from the island un- 
observed, and the Lorraines cherished the ruins as a 
milestone in the history of their family. 

But Mr. Jones assured Mr. Ebbutt that the value of 
the memorial would be enhanced by removing all the 
loose stones, and exposing what remained standing of 
the shell of the walls and towers. 

262 


Grace’s Friendship with Mr. Ebbutt 263 

When the stones were removed to the scene of the 
building operations, the range of five underground vaults 
cut out of the rock, which, filled with stores and ammuni- 
tion, had enabled the garrison to hold out for the King 
so long, were discovered to be practically uninjured. 
Mr. Ebbutt drew the attention of the Admiral at Plymouth 
to their value, and they were taken over for the Navy, 
who were already using the inlet as a station for armed 
trawlers and mine-sweepers. 

The castle had possessed a chapel and a banqueting- 
hall, for the abbots had lived in it during the Wars 
of the Roses, and the Lorraines until the Manor 
House was built, and the fragments of Gothic windows 
in the ruins gave a fine appearance of antiquity to the 
two little churches, which were to be for hire to religious 
denominations under very strict conditions as to decora- 
tion. The Church of England people were already well 
provided for in Mr. Wynyard’s fine and ancient church 
in the village, erected by a fifteenth-century Bishop of 
Exeter in rivalry to the monastery. 

The dark red sandstone for copying the ruin of the 
Taormina theatre came from a Plymouth stoneyard, where 
it had been lying idle since the beginning of the war, 
because the building of a church had been countermanded. 
There were even round stones for the columns, which were 
to have supported the arches of the nave. 

The copying of the Orologio Tower at Taormina, and 
the two little churches of Sant’ Agostino and Sant’ Antonio, 
which Grace persuaded Mr. Ebbutt to call by their Italian 
names (he did not greatly care if it prevented the denomina- 
tions from hiring such suitable buildings), gave Grace 
intense pleasure, especially Sant’ Agostino, which was 
built facing the tower on a little piazza, as it stands at 
Taormina. The piazza was given its tiny esplanade, with 
a thin rail facing the sea, and its copy of the poor little 
Taormina club to be used as a tea-room. 

Let not the reader think these trivial details unim- 
portant to the story. They might have been, it is true, 
had not Grace’s heart been in them. 

Horace Jones, the architect, was almost paralysed 


264 


Grace Lorraine 


by the amount of money which Mr. Ebbutt was prepared 
to spend on the Devonshire Taormina. How was he to 
know that the American had received more value out of 
the plans which he had prepared for him than out of the 
most successful speculations of his life ? 

Richmond Ebbutt could never sufficiently thank him. 
It was the Taormina scheme which had melted the hard- 
ness of Grace's heart. Already, in the absence of Roger, 
Mr. Ebbutt was her closest friend. Every morning when 
she awoke she planned out what she would do with him 
for a new development of the idea. She had no house- 
keeping to do, because their meals were sent in from 
the kitchen of the Fellowship, and the housework was 
done by the staff, except for a few things which their 
old servant prefered to do herself. 

So the hours which she used to divide between her 
painting and moping were now given to working with Mr. 
Ebbutt, and Mr. Jones — when he was there, which was 
not always, now, though new houses were called for every 
now and then. 

The roads had already been made, and drains and 
water laid down in them for connecting up with the houses 
when they were built. 

Grace was constantly at the Manor House now. 
Having seen how absolutely she could trust Mr. Ebbutt 
not to presume, she did not give the matter another 
thought, but ran in whenever a new idea struck her, to 
discuss it with him. And having discovered, like his 
working people at Ebbuttsville, Ohio, how generous, how 
unselfish, how upright, how charitable to other people’s 
failings he was, and having, in addition to that, discovered, 
on her own account, how enthusiastic he was about 
beautiful and ancient things, and what a capacity for good 
taste he had when the charm was pointed out to him, 
she had made him her companion as she used to make 
Roger, only Mr. Ebbutt was a companion for her mind 
instead of for sport. 

The only sport she had nowadays was golf with Gaston 
Bernafay, to whom she could “ give a half ” and win. But 
he made a point of being ready to play when she wanted 


Grace’s Friendship with Mr. Ebbutt 265 

him, and while they were being ferried over to the links, 
or at tea afterwards, she could discuss with him Mr. 
Ebbutt’s schemes for the Via Pacis plays. A romantic 
actor, like Mr. Bernafay, who was very perfect in his 
technique, and had received a thorough training in every 
branch of the profession, especially in the matter of stock 
companies — for he had been long at the Brighton Theatre 
in its palmy days — was exactly the right person to manage 
Mr. Ebbutt’s King-Arthur-Oberammergau scheme. And 
Mr. Ebbutt engaged him to superintend it, with a liberal 
salary, and a house in the New Taormina, and gave him 
practically carte-blanche for the expenses of the production 
— another excursion into the Middle Ages. 

One episode in especial had illustrated several of the 
American’s fine qualities to her. Rachel, who was now 
his housekeeper, as she had been theirs, in one of her 
numerous visits to the Manor House, told her about the 
room aboye the porch which was filled with the pictures 
from her brush which Mr. Ebbutt had bought from the 
local bookseller. 

“ I can’t take you into it,” she said, “ because ever 
since the pictures were there he has given strict orders 
that no one should go into the room but myself. But I 
think that I could make him invite you into the room 
himself. Shall I try ? ” 

“ Yes, do,” said Grace. It would give her a thrill to 
see it, now that she and he were such friends. 

Rachel was not slow in finding an opportunity. The 
next time that Grace was coming to tea, she suggested 
having it in that room. 

“ Why do you suggest this ? ” he asked. 

“Weil, for one thing, it is the nicest room in the house 
for a small tea, and for another thing, she’s ripe to see 
the pictures now, and be pleased, not angry.” 

“ Do you think so, Rachel ? ” he asked eagerly. 

“ I am sure of it.” 

“ Then give us tea there.” 

All the same, he led the way to it with great diffidence 
when tea was announced, and waited like a schoolboy in 
the presence of a head master to hear her verdict. 


266 


Grace Lorraine 


" Oh, Maecenas, how good of you ! ” she said. She 
called him Maecenas because he was the patron of all 
that was artistic at Via Pacis — a veritable Maecenas. 
" And you’ve given them my favourite frames, too. 
But how did you get hold of them, may I ask ? ” 

“ I bought them from Mr. Trezennor, the bookseller 
at Seacombe. I bought a big batch of them at first, 
and afterwards as they came in. Having found a pur- 
chaser for them, he gave you an order, I suppose, to let 
him have as many as you could ? ” 

" Yes, he did.” 

A sudden thought seemed to strike him, which made 
his face cloud. 

“ I’m going to ask you a question, Miss Grace, which 
may be a strain to our friendship.” 

“ It would take a good deal to do that now, Maecenas.” 

“ Well, I hope so. But don’t blame me for asking it. 
How much did he give you for those pictures ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t mind telling you. Before one who is 
so sincere as you, I shan’t blush in confessing the low 
value which I have in the Art World. He gave me ten 
shillings each for them.” 

“ For the big lot which he bought at first ? ” 

“Yes, and all the others as well.” 

“ The low-down dog ! ” he said. “ I don’t say it about 
the first lot — that was a pure spec. He didn’t know as 
whether he would find a market for them or not, though 
I have a shrewd idea, seeing the kind of man that he has 
shown himself, that he meant to work on people’s pity 
for your misfortunes, not allowing that he had bought 
them for a rise himself, but pretending that the money 
for each one was only going to you, if he sold it, and that 
he was getting nothing out of them. 

“ But when he knew as how I would buy every one 
that he brought to me for two guineas — that was the price 
he put on them — he should have handed over the two 
guineas to you, taking off the fifteen or twenty per cent, 
which is usual in the trade. I think that ten would have 
been enough in your case, seeing what he owes to your 
family. But to go on making seventy-five per cent, out 


Grace’s Friendship with Mr. Ebbutt 267 

of a dead cert., knowing how you wanted the money — 
it’s monstrous ! I shall let him know my mind ! ” 

“ Oh, don’t, or he won’t give me any more orders.” 

“ I shall buy from you direct in the future, at the price 
he has fixed, or . . 

“ I know what you’re going to say, Maecenas, but 
don’t you dare to say it, or you will shame me out of 
painting ! I will sell them to you direct, but I don’t 
think that I shall let you give me more than ten shillings 
each for them — they’re not worth it.” 

“ But . . .” 

“ But me no buts, but tell me why you desire to possess 
such wretched productions ? ” 

“ Shall I really tell you ? ” 

She knew quite well the sort of thing which he 
would say, but she had the whim to hear it just this 
once. 

“You will promise not to let it make any difference 
to our friendship ? ” 

“ Yes, I promise.” 

“ Honest injun ? ” 

“Yes, honest injun.” 

“ Oh, well, if you must have it, I bought them because 
I don’t like any other human being to possess anything 
which has been yours.” 

“You could have had any number of things which 
had been mine, or which I had used, if you had only been 
of this mind when you came into possession of the house,” 
she said, with a little laugh to hide her feelings, which 
only made the laugh itself full of feeling. 

“ I have got every one of them, I hope, because the 
things which were about the house in the private rooms 
are all there still. I brought no things of my own, and 
I loved your house as I saw it, so I left things just as 
they were. But the things which were in the rooms 
you occupied yourself, which you left behind to throw 
away — I gave Rachel orders that not one of them should 
leave the rooms, that they should all be laid away in your 
drawers or your cupboards, as if they were waiting for 
your return.” 


268 


Grace Lorraine 


Grace had never felt so touched in her life. It was a 
devotion — nay, rather, a worship beyond her conception. 

“ Oh, you dear, kind, faithful Maecenas ! I am not 
worthy of such devotion ! Until I began working with 
you, I was comparatively a rotter, though I have tried to 
be decent about Roger.” 

“ You mean in refusing to believe that he is dead, and 
keeping yourself for him ? ” 

“No, I’m afraid I don’t mean that at all, but I can’t 
tell you what I do mean.” 

“ Well, I have no right to know. And I shall always 
be grateful that you let me tell you my secret without 
its injuring our friendship.” 

“ Indeed, I don’t mind telling you that I’m very fond 
of you, Maecenas. There’s no reason why you should 
not know. Since you are aware that I am engaged to 
Roger Wynyard, it can’t raise false hopes in your breast. 
And we are very big, big friends.” 

* * * * * * * 

When Grace left the Manor House, Mr. Ebbutt sent 
for his car, and motored down to Trezennor’s shop. When 
he entered it, the bookseller was fulsomely polite. 

“ Oh, good evening, Mr. Ebbutt.” 

“ Good evening,” said the millionaire, rather curtly. 
“ I came to see you about those pictures you bought from 
Miss Lorraine. I find that you only paid her ten shillings 
apiece for them, when you knew that you could get two 
guineas apiece for them from me.” 

“ I introduced her pictures to you, sir. When I bought 
that first lot I did it more to help her than anything else 
— there was nothing to show me how they would go, and 
they were nothing very great as works of art. I put my 
price on them, and you paid it. I am unable to see that 
I have done anything for her to complain of.” 

“ Perhaps not. We’ll pass that first lot. But when 
you asked her to bring you some more, you did it with 
the full knowledge that you were going to ask me two 
guineas apiece for them, and that I should pay it.” 

“ I don’t deny it, sir.” 


Grace’s Friendship with Mr. Ebbutt 269 

“ Then here I think she has a good deal to complain 
of — especially since she needs money, and her father has 
been such a liberal patron of your shop until he had his 
loss. You should have told her that you could get her 
a commission to paint a number more pictures, for 
which the purchaser was willing to pay two guineas each, 
and explained the commission which the trade are accus- 
tomed to charge an artist upon orders which they procure 
for him or her ! ” 

“ I don’t see it, sir. I’ve a right to buy in the cheapest 
market and sell in the dearest — that is the principle of 
Free Trade, and England is the land of Free Trade.” 

“ There is not much to boast of in that. There would 
have been no war without England’s Free Trade. It 
gave Germany the money to arm herself with. Don’t 
talk to me of Free Trade. America don’t have Free 
Trade and she’s a deal more prosperous than England. 
But I’m getting off the point, which is that I don’t like 
the way you’ve treated Miss Lorraine.” 

“You must leave me to manage my own business, Mr. 
Ebbutt,” said the bookseller, his Cornish irascibility 
getting the better of his desire to humour so good a 
customer. 

“ Before I leave you to manage your own business, Mr. 
Trezennor, I have a business proposition to lay before 
you. You will allow that I must know the principles of 
business, since I began without a cent, and, except Mr. 
Astor — Lord Astor, I think he is now — am probably the 
richest man in England ? ” 

“Yes, sir,” said the bookseller, a little cooled down by 
the mention of so much wealth. 

“ Well, the business proposition which I wish to lay 
before you is that for those thirty or forty pictures of Miss 
Lorraine’s which you bought after the first lot, you should 
pay her another twenty-four shillings each, representing 
the price I paid you, less about twenty per cent, commis- 
sion — or I should be satisfied, since the transaction is 
closed, if you paid her another pound on each picture, 
representing a twelve-shilling commission for you — a 
good deal over five-and- twenty per cent.” 


270 


Grace Lorraine 


The Cornishman blazed out : “ I’m not going to be 
dictated to in my business by you or anyone else — 
millionaire or not ! I can tell you that, Mr. Ebbutt 1 ” 

“ Quite so, Mr. Trezennor,” said the millionaire blandly. 
“ I will leave you to manage your own business more 
completely than you think. I understand from my 
agent that you are in treaty for the big corner store in the 
shopping street of my new town. You will not be allowed 
to have this shop, or any other shop in my town, and I 
shall let that corner-shop to Railway Bookstalls Ltd. — or, 
if they are not willing to take it, I shall engage men who 
have been with them, and run a bookshop myself, which 
shall equal the best shop they have. Good evening, Mr. 
Trezennor.” 

Mr. Ebbutt had left the shop before Mr. Trezennor had 
time to recover himself. When at last he found speech, 
he said to his wife, “ Well, I’m dommed ! Bringing they 
bookstalls down here ! But I’ll fight ’un, and the folk tu 
Old Seacombe itself won’t leave me. What Old Seacombe 
wanted was all my fayther had afore Squire started his 
new-fangled business tu Via Pacis. Not that I ha’ not 
done well out of it. But I’ll see him dommed, I will ! ” 

“ Trezennor,” said his wife, who was a Devon woman, 
“ ’tis a pity you could not be just. What new Squire 
said about Miss Grace was just. I doubt it he’s a just 
man, and if it wasn’t just it was business, and you ought 
to have seed it. A Cornishman never sees that he is 
doin’ wrong, and it’s often that he’s not doin’ right, for 
he can’t shut his eye to the temptation of taking what 
isn’t his own if there’s nobody lookin’. New Squire saw, 
though he wasn’t for looking, and you thought to save 
the wrong by temper. It’s a bad business, it is, it is.” 

“ I’ll not be dictated to by any man ! ” he cried doggedly. 
“ Maybe not — he can’t make a just man of you, Sile, 
but he can make a poor one l ” 

“ He can’t make anything of me!” he shouted. 

“ The Lord knows us,” she said. “ When he means to 
ruin a man, he makes him a fool first.” 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


OF THE PRESSURE BROUGHT UPON GRACE TO MARRY 
MR. EBBUTT 



AILWAY BOOKSTALLS LTD. were perfectly 


IV willing to oblige the millionaire, who wanted 
them to establish a shop in his new town. If he would 
guarantee them a certain turnover for five years, they were 
ready to take the premises from him at the very moderate 
rental put on them, and to establish a shop of the class he 
required, and a stall in the market-place by the harbour, 
where the motor-bus from Seacombe Road stopped on its 
way to Via Pacis. 

Mr. Ebbutt had helped the ’bus proprietor, who ran 
the nine miles between the station and the town, to sub- 
stitute a motor service — the hills were so severe on the 
horses, and he was an ardent member of the R.S.P.C.A. — 
and the time wasted was so serious a hindrance to his 
schemes for the advancement of Via Pacis. 

As far as immediate results went, the millionaire felt 
them before the bookseller. For his bill was only made 
up at the end of the quarter, while Grace had been accus- 
tomed to get ten shillings or a pound a week by the 
sketches she took in to Mr. Trezennor, and the Squire knew 
that the Cornishman was no longer buying them, because 
they were no longer being offered to him. So the net 
result of his interference was to deprive Grace of these 
useful relays of pocket-money. When he had tried to 


271 


272 


Grace Lorraine 


persuade her to let him buy them direct from her, she 
had not refused him in so many words, but she had alleged 
that she was so busy helping him with his building that 
she had no time for sketching. 

“ Well, you do your sketches and leave me to do my 
own work.” It was a most heroic offer ; it meant giving 
up one of his greatest pleasures in life, and letting his 
work suffer at the same time, for the want of advice from 
someone who knew the real Taormina well. 

She shook her head. “ No, I can’t let the work suffer.” 

“ Well — may I make another risky suggestion, under 
a safe conduct from you that you won’t let our friendship 
suffer for it ? ” 

“ Well, yes,” she said. “ But don’t try me too far,” 
she added, having an inkling of what might be coming. 

“ I was going to say, may I offer you a salaried post, 
as my adviser when Mr. Jones is away, with just the 
money attached to it that you lose by not doing your 
painting ? ” 

“ I knew that you were going to say that, but of course 
I cannot permit it. And I don’t really want any money 
at Via Pacis. I have nothing to spend it on. Our board 
and lodging is found, and I have enough clothes left to 
last me for years.” 

He bit his lip with remorse. He had done her this 
injury not only in the hope of benefiting her,' but to gratify 
his own sense of justice, and now he was in a cleft stick, 
where he, with his millions of money, could not get one 
shilling of it to the straitened pockets of the woman whom 
he loved better than all his wealth. 

******* 

But Grace had said truthfully that she was not in need 
of the money, for she had been putting all she made by 
her pictures into the Savings Bank. 

****** * 

Though Grace would not take his commissions for her 
pictures, it was impossible not to be affected by his generous 


The Pressure on Grace to marry 273 

championing of her interests, and she allowed him to give 
her a library subscription of the most expensive kind at 
the R.B., because he said that he would have to spend 
lavishly there to bring the guarantee up to the proper 
figure until more people came to live at the New Taormina. 
To a voracious reader like her, this was a source of never- 
ending pleasure. 

Nor — for the same reasons — did she refuse the com- 
mission to paint pictures of Via Pacis at two guineas each, 
less the usual commission, which the R.B. forwarded to 
her, realizing further that if she did so she would only be 
playing into the hands of Trezennor in his fight with Mr. 
Ebbutt. But she was so determined that the pictures 
should be more worthy that she took an unconscionable 
time over them. 

Mr. Trezennor felt the pressure, though he might not 
notice the withdrawal of his principal account till 
quarter-day came, and he was paying out himself. 

His newspaper trade was the first to suffer, for the big 
firm got their papers down earlier, more regularly, and 
on a far more liberal scale, since returns were a simple 
affair for them. Even a fishing place like Seacombe is 
faddy about its Daily Minor and Daily Sketch , and 
likes to get them direct from London by the down train 
which stops at Seacombe Road, instead of getting them 
from Plymouth by the up-train, because they left London 
by the later train, which does not stop at Seacombe Road. 

Trezennor’ s shop, too, was away from the centre of the 
traffic, while the R.B. had their stall where the motor-bus 
stopped in the old town, near the harbour-head. 

Preparations for the coming summer season were now 
the order of the day. Mr. Ebbutt wished to provide an 
ideal holiday for professional people of straitened means, 
who took advantage of the economies which he offered 
them. 

He also invited the Professional Classes’ War Relief 
Committee in Prince’s Gate to send him down as his 
guests every week, for a seven days’ rest, fifty professional 
people who could not afford a holiday ; he sent the money 
for their railway fares, and used a large boarding-house, 

18 


274 


Grace Lorraine 


on the Italian plan, which had not yet been occupied, for 
their accommodation. 

The weeks before the summer holidays were passed 
in hard work at practical preparations. 

* * * * * * * 

A full year had now passed since Roger had last been 
heard, of, and both his mother and Grace were abandoning 
their hopes of his survival. His mother had lost all hope 
in her heart, though she continued to say that she would 
do such and such a thing when Roger came home. But 
Grace, though she had ceased to talk about it, always had 
the feeling in her heart that the impossible would happen. 

Correspondingly in Mr. Ebbutt’s breast little seeds of 
hope began to burgeon. He confided to Mr. Lorraine, under 
the strictest pledge of secrecy, that he cherished the ambi- 
tion — if Roger did not come back — of inducing Grace to 
give him the right to restore to her the home and heritage 
of her ancestors. 

And he gained a sympathetic ear, for if Grace had to 
marry (and such a beautiful and healthy girl could not be 
expected to remain single all her life, waiting for a lover 
who would never return) he had several reasons for prefering 
Mr. Ebbutt to any other son-in-law. 

Grace, in the first place, would once more reign as the 
mistress of the Manor House, beyond the reach of mis- 
fortunes such as had overtaken himself and nis father-in- 
law, and in the second place, in Mr. Ebbutt he would have a 
son-in-law who was already continuing his noble foundation 
of the Fellowship of Via Pacis. 

Of Grace’s future happiness with such a husband he had 
not the slightest doubt, for if in birth and physique and 
education he was far from the ideal which her fastidious 
fancy would look for in a husband, his excessive generosity 
and unselfishness, and his cheeriness and romantic enthu- 
siasm, must surround her with an atmosphere of the deepest 
content. A duke’s daughter would think twice before she 
rejected such enormous wealth. 

" Shall I speak to her about it ? ” 


The Pressure on Grace to marry 275 

" No, it might look like pressure.” 

For once in his life Mr. Lorraine felt recalcitrant. He 
was mindful that though Mr. Ebbutt did not wish him to 
speak about it to Grace, he had not expressed any wish 
that he should keep silence in other directions. 

He might, at all events, consult Lady Cynthia, the other 
person principally concerned. But how should he set 
about it ? It would be cruel even to sound her as to 
whether she had given up all hope or not. He must get 
her to volunteer that information. But how should he 
do it ? He could think of no better way than bluntly 
informing her of the fact. 

So he called on her, and blurted out, “ Ebbutt wants to 
marry Grace.” 

She looked at him curiously. The announcement she 
had foreseen for some time. Had not he also foreseen it ? 
He was a blind old thing, to be sure, or he would not be in 
the position to which he had fallen. But could he be so 
blind as this ? The shadow of it had been troubling her 
for six months past. 

“ Well,” she said, after a little, “ why shouldn’t he ? 
If Grace were still a great heiress she might think of it 
twice. But as it is, you ought both to be thankful. You’ll 
excuse my bluntness, Uncle Henry. But, I take it, you 
want real advice ? ” 

” Most decidedly.” 

“ Then there can be no two words about it. He’s a 
decent fellow, if ever there was one.” 

” As far as the money’s concerned, I’d say yes if he’d 
only a thousand a year instead of a hundred thousand. 
That isn’t the point, Cynthia.” 

“ Doesn’t she want to marry him ? ” 

“ I’m afraid not — but that isn’t the point either.” 

Lady Cynthia sighed. “I see what you mean, dear 
friend, I think, and thank you a thousand times. But 
that, at any rate, should not stand in the way any longer. 
In fact, just to hedge, I should even welcome it, because 
nothing would be so likely to bring him back as Grace’s 
giving him up. I don’t know what my father-in-law would 
call these coincidences — most clergymen would class them 

18* 


276 


Grace Lorraine 


under ' inscrutable ways/ but my pagan view of them is 
that Fate enjoys cheating expectations.” 

“ I don’t like your talking like that, Cynthia.” 

“ Well, put it as you like — I would throw even the 
marriage with Grace into the melting-pot, though it has 
been the chief wish of his life, to know that he is still upon 
the earth.” 

“ Do you mean that you would not grudge her marrying 
Mr. Ebbutt ? ” 

“ I think she ought to marry him. I even think that 
she’d be happier with him than with Roger in the long 
run.” 

“ I think I do. Grace has developed in this past year.” 

“ Then give your consent.” 

“ It isn’t a question of my consent, Cynthia, but of hers. 
He daren’t ask her himself for fear of wrecking their 
friendship, and he won’t let me speak for him.” 

“ Grace can be very difficult.” 

“ I know. What should one do ? ” 

“ I think, perhaps, I’d better approach her. I can 
introduce the subject of Roger, and pass to Mr. Ebbutt 
incidentally, if I don’t see my way to doing it directly.” 

" It’s most good of you, Cynthia — the person with the 
best right to raise an objection.” 

“ It would be unjust to both her and you if I did raise 
it. Roger would be the first to say so himself.” 

“ Poor Roger ! ” 

“You mustn’t say ‘ poor Roger ’ — you mustn’t even 
say ‘ poor us ’ if he has died for his country. The Prime 
Minister himself has given his first-born to head the glorious 
list.” 

“ Then you will speak to her ? ” 

“ Yes, I’ll speak to her.” 

The next day, when Grace came down to ask the question 
which seemed for ever doomed to disappointment, Lady 
Cynthia said to her, “ Grace dear, your father has asked 
me to speak to you upon a matter which lies very near 
his heart.” 

“ What is it ? Why didn’t he ask me himself ? ” 
said Grace, suspiciously. 


The Pressure on Grace to marry 277 

" Because he had promised not to.” 

“ Promised whom ? ” 

“ The person most concerned. That should tell you 
what I have to say to you.” 

“ It tells me only too plainly. But how can you, above 
all people, urge it ? ” 

“ Because only I can urge it without doing Cynthia 
Wynyard an injury.” 

“ And why do you do it ? ” 

“ Because it is for your benefit and happiness.” 

It is not for my happiness. A voice within me tells 
me that Roger is not dead. And I have to wait for him.” 

“ In the face of what you say, I cannot without disloyalty 
to Roger fulfil my promise to your father,” said Lady 
Cynthia. 

It was an impotent conclusion to the brave words which 
she had spoken to Mr. Lorraine. But her artillery had 
been captured, and she could only draw off. 

“ Dad, dear,” Grace said, finding her father alone on her 
return, “ why did you go to Aunt Cynthia about my 
engagement to Roger ? ” 

“ I am not going to prevaricate, Grace. I hold it a sin 
for any father to prevaricate to a child. I think the time 
has come for you to give up hoping for his return.” 

“ Why shouldn’t I feed on hope ? ” 

“ Because it must be in vain now. His mother herself 
has ceased to cherish it.” 

“ I shall hope against hope.” 

“ But why ? ” persisted her father, in a way to which 
she was not accustomed from him — he was always so gentle 
and self-effacing. She did not understand it. 

“ Why do you urge me so, father ? ” 

“ Cannot you see ? By my fatuity in business I allowed 
the lands which my ancestors have held for nearly four 
hundred years, and the splendid prospects which you had 
inherited, to be torn from you. Now Providence has been 
pleased to vouchsafe the means of winning them back, with 
only one single drawback attaching — your engagement to 
a dear boy who has been dead a year.” 

“ I don’t believe that he is dead, father.” 


278 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I wish I didn’t — I wish his mother didn’t. But we are 
both agreed that it is only waiting for a shadow when a 
reality is offering itself.” 

“You mean that Mr. Ebbutt wants to marry me ? ” 

“Yes. Have you such an insuperable objection to 
him ? ” 

“ I have no objection to Mr. Ebbutt. After Roger, and 
Mr. Sylvester, I like him better than anybody I know. He 
is a man among men. I can understand his making such 
an almost inconceivable fortune. He has such a power of 
imagination, and listens to its dictates. But I cannot 
think of him as I think of Roger, my chosen companion 
since childhood. In fact, I cannot think of him as a husband 
at all. I can only picture him as a father, like you — 
ineffably kind, always about looking after me, and waiting 
on my comfort and wishes, always giving everything and 
taking nothing, something to submit to with affection, not 
to engage in the battle of love.” 

“ He would not ask more until you wished to give more. 
You could go on as you are going now. As it is, you spend 
most of the day in his society. You are the confidante of 
all his plans, you share all the work he does on the estate ; 
your whole day is taken up in doing things with him, or 
thinking out what you are going to do with him. Except 
in the matter of giving him the privileges of a husband, 
which he would not press, and living in the Manor House 
again instead of in the Abbot’s Lodging, you would be 
doing exactly the same as you do now.” 

“ If I married him at all, Dad, I should withhold nothing. 
I should go to him as frankly as I should go to Roger. I 
am not the sort of woman to do things by halves. But I 
will not make a pinchbeck marriage. I have always 
determined that my marriage should be the greatest thing 
in my life. You know that this was the reason why I 
would not listen to you when Roger was so constantly 
begging me to marry him, and you were so anxious that I 
should grant his request. I knew that Roger, unless he 
developed, for which I was willing to give him time, could 
not give me the companionship of interests I needed in 
one to whom I was to give up my life. So I refused him 


The Pressure on Grace to marry 279 

until he was going to face the enemy, and, since I loved 
him, and I should not have been able to forgive myself if 
what has happened had happened without my making 
the amende, I was prepared to marry him there and then. 
You know why the marriage failed.” 

“ Because dear Roger, in his happy-go-lucky way, wasted 
a day over getting the license.” 

"We will leave it at that, as Roger would say.” 

The whole episode of Roger’s last few days before his 
departure for the front bordered on the inexplicable to 
Mr. Lorraine. 

After parting with Roger so briefly on the Friday night, 
more determined than ever not to promise to marry him if 
he came back safe when the war was over, with something 
so near a quarrel between them that she had not accom- 
panied them to the station in Mr. Ebbutt’s car, she had 
written to him on the Sunday as soon as she had heard that 
his sailing was postponed, to ask him to a meeting at which 
she meant to say that she would marry him before he left. 
And he had felt so little eagerness that he had trifled away 
a whole day before he went to get the license, though surely 
his Commanding Offiqer, if he had laid the facts before 
him, would have given him instant leave to settle a matter 
so urgent ? Then he and Grace had passed the day while 
the license was maturing with the proper absorption of 
lovers, and the intention of being married as soon as the 
twenty-four hours were up. And then once more the hour 
of departure had been changed at an instant’s notice, and 
the marriage frustrated. 

What was he to think of it ? And what was he to think 
of the new impasse ? 

“ Well, if I say no more about it unless we get positive 
proof of Roger’s death, will you promise to marry Mr. 
Ebbutt if the proofs are forthcoming ? ” 

"No, Dad, I’m afraid I can’t. If I can’t marry the man 
I wish, I won’t marry at all. I would not accept Roger in 
the old days because he could only give me love, and I 
cannot marry Mr. Ebbutt because I could not love him as 
a husband. He can remain my greatest friend. He can 
have as much of my companionship as he chooses all the 


280 


Grace Lorraine 


time that he and we live at Via Pacis, and I could give him 
very little more if we were married.” 

“ But surely you see the difference it would make if you 
were married, and once more the mistress of Via Pacis, and 
mother of its heirs ? The effect of my folly would be wiped 
out, and my anxiety for your future would be at an end.” 

“ There is no anxiety for my future, Dad. For, as you’ve 
so often told me, the foundation deed of the Fellowship of 
Via Pacis lays down that the nomination of the Fellows 
shall be vested in your heir for the time being, and if I 
survive you I shall be your heir, and can nominate myself 
to the first vacancy.” 

“ Ah, but that isn’t the same thing, Grace, and now that 
poor Roger’s gone, and there is no obstacle to your marriage, 
it is your duty to marry Ebbutt and restore the fortunes of 
the Lorraines.” 

“ They won’t be Lorraines any longer ; they will be 
American Ebbutts.” 

Mr. Lorraine’s face fell ; he had not thought of this, 
obvious as it was. But he recovered himself and said, 
“ The main thing is the inheritance. I should die happy if 
I could reflect that my daughter was back in the home of 
her ancestors.” 

" Tell Mr. Ebbutt,” she said, desiring to spare the feelings 
of the man for whom she felt such a real affection of another 
kind, “ that I have not given up hope of Roger, and shall 
not for many a day yet.” 


CHAPTER XL 


HOW NEWS OF ROGER’S DEATH WAS BROUGHT TO GRACE, 
AND SHE CONSENTED TO MARRY MR. EBBUTT 

A SANATORIUM for convalescent officers who were 
too poor to afford a sanatorium where they had to 
pay for themselves, and needed a genial climate to expedite 
their recovery, was part of Mr. Ebbutt’s New Taormina 
scheme. 

A sanatorium for convalescent soldiers had been his first 
idea, but he had been assured by those who knew Tommy 
best that the plan was unsuitable, because Tommy would 
prefer to spend his convalescence in a suburb of London 
where he would see more life. Attracted by the name, 
since he was called after the American city of that name, 
Richmond Ebbutt hired the large empty houses on the 
hill overlooking the river at Richmond, and turned them 
into sanatoria for the rank and file. 

He had intended to make the convalescent rank and file 
his especial care, if he could have had them down at Via 
Pacis. At Richmond he could do no more than pay them 
regular visits to see if things were being done on the scale 
that he wished. 

The officers at Via Pacis were allowed to bring their 
wives to look after them, and were housed in the repro- 
ductions of the Palazzo Corvaia and the Santa Caterina 
Convent. 

Thither in the early summer of 1916 came Captain and 
Mrs. Dicey. 

As a man of the people himself, Mr. Ebbut was much 
281 


282 


Grace Lorraine 


interested when he heard that Captain Dicey was a ranker. 
He called on him at once. 

He found a cheery man, the life and soul of the 
sanatorium, who took a great interest in getting up enter- 
tainments. This brought him into touch with Gaston 
Bernafay, and the acting and musical contingent of the 
Via Pacis Fellowship, and with Lady Cynthia, who, as 
widow of an officer on the Viceroy of India’s staff, had 
considerable experience in getting up amateur dramatic 
performances and concerts. 

Mr. Ebbutt had asked her to become patroness of the 
sanatorium. She accepted joyfully, and worked as hard 
as any paid official in the place. Whatever she did for them 
she seemed to be doing, not for the Lord, but for her lost 
son. Of all the new interests in life which Mr. Ebbutt’s 
scheme had brought to the Wynyards, so long isolated in 
the wilds, there was none comparable to this. 

The first time that Captain Dicey met her, he said to her, 
“ Did you say that your name was Wynyard ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How curious ! We had an officer of your name in 
my Battalion.” 

“ What was your Battalion, Captain Dicey ? ” 

“ The 20th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment.” 

“ He was my son.” 

“ I was with him when he fell, Lady Cynthia.” 

“ And you saw him die ? ” 

“ I saw him dead.” 

“ Don’t tell me about it now. I could not hear it in the 
middle of a rehearsal, but bring your wife to dinner on the 
first night that will suit her, so that his grandfather and I 
may hear the truth which we have so long feared. He was 
only reported missing in the Gazette , you know.” 

On the next night, when the Diceys had gone to dinner 
at the Rectory, Captain Dicey said to Lady Cynthia in 
the drawing-room after dinner : 

“Yes, I remember the circumstances of the case per- 
fectly. When we finally took the position where he and 
so many of our chaps had fallen, they could not find his 
body.” 


Grace consents to marry Mr. Ebbutt 283 

“ Are yon quite sure that he was killed, Captain Dicey ? ” 

“ Quite sure. I was badly wounded myself, and lay on 
the ground close to him for several hours, shamming dead, 
because the German snipers were shooting every man that 
stirred and showed he had a spark of life in him. I lay 
there till dark, and then I got up and ran to our own 
lines. I was not much hurt ; I did not get back with 
the rest when they retired, for I had been knocked 
insensible. 

“It was lucky that I ran, for the boys were just retiring 
on their reserves, though afterwards they were reinforced, 
and went forward again and took the position from the 
flank.” 

“ Couldn’t he have been shamming dead, too ? ” 

“ I don’t think so, because he never turned up again.” 

“ But where did he get to, then ? ” 

“ He might have been knocked to pieces by a shell while 
his body was lying there. With all those thousands of 
shells flying about, the dead get bombarded as well as the 
living.” 

After this Lady Cynthia had no further doubt, and 
allowed Mr. Ebbutt to order the memorial brass of Roger, 
which he was anxious to put up in the church. At the same 
time she went to Grace, and said, “ I think you might have 
compassion on poor Mr. Ebbutt.” 

“ I see no reason why I should marry him,” said Grace. 
“ I can’t give him a wife’s affection, and I give him 
practically the whole of my society.” 

Lady Cynthia thought her own thoughts, but she was a 
wise woman, and knew that the best way to move Grace 
was to agree with her that there was no reason why she 
should be moved. That made Grace wonder if she was 
right, and paved the way for her father. 

“You will remember, Grace dear,” he said, “ my 
asking you if you would marry Mr. Ebbutt when you 
received the proofs that Roger was dead ? ” 

“ Yes, but . . 

“You refused. I was going to add that. You did 
refuse, but it is hardly the same thing now, when the con- 
tingency has happened, as it was while it was in the air.” 


284 


Grace Lorraine 


“ But it does not alter that other fact — that Mr. Ebbutt 
is not a man whom I could marry.” 

“ I suppose not,” he said disappointedly. It was a 
crushing blow to him that she should let a girlish fancy, as 
he considered it, stand in the way of the consummation 
of his fairest wishes. 

* * * * * * * 

It was late on a June afternoon that Mr. Ebbutt and 
Grace were seated in the auditorium of the theatre, looking 
over the copy of that wonderful ruin, the proscenium of the 
Graeco-Roman theatre at Taormina, also over the whole 
town, which so recalled the original Taormina that sits 
enthroned on the heights above the Strait of Messina. 

“ Does it remind you a little bit, Miss Grace ? ” 

“ It reminds me a great deal. If I half-shut my eyes, I 
can imagine myself there. Once more rock, sand and sea 
stretch away from beneath me in long bands of brown and 
gold and blue ; once more I see cape after cape retreating 
into the distance. Once more I am gazing from that hot 
hillside on the snow-mantled shoulders of Etna.” 

” I am afraid that I can’t put Mount Etna into the 
picture. That would be too big a slice of the melon, even 
for me. But I would do anything I could for you, Miss 
Grace.” 

“ You are far too good to me, Maecenas. I wish I could 
do anything for you in return.” 

“ You can, you know.” 

“ Oh, that ! ” Her first impulse was to shrivel into her 
shell ; she no longer flew into passions with him. Then she 
remembered what Brooke Sylvester had said, and having 
the New Taormina before her eyes, she admitted its truth, 
and asked gently — almost humbly : “ Would you care for 
the poor bit of my heart which does not lie buried on that 
mountain of unnamed dead in Picardy ? ” 

“ I should cherish one drop of its blood above all my 
possessions.” 

“ But it would not be mine to give, you know, because 
I vowed to Roger Wynyard that if ever he came back I 
would marry him the first minute afterwards. And, even 


Grace consents to marry Mr. Ebbutt 285 

if I promised you, and he came in time, I should go straight 
to him, for my promise was to him first, and it is now sealed 
in his blood. That is why I cannot marry you, dear 
Maecenas/' 

“ But you can, Grace, for I accept the conditions. To 
have been engaged to you for only one hour would be the 
fairest fruit of my life.” 

“ Then you wish it ? ” 

“ More than anything else in the world.” 

“ I will not gainsay you any longer, for I owe you so 
much — not in wealth, for I have not taken anything from 
you, except the few pounds I earned by my painting ; 
but in life, for I had no interests left in life when you 
allowed me to participate in the glorious creation which 
you have planted on our Devonshire hills. My mind has 
had one long feast ever since you began your work. If it 
be true that the function of Art is to create beauty, you 
have been a great artist, Maecenas.” 

“ No, I have not been an artist — only what you call a 
Maecenas. But think how eternally grateful I should be 
for that — that I, a common china-maker from Ohio, should 
have been privileged to create a landscape which the 
voyagers on the great ocean-liners, as they pass the twin 
heads of Seacombe, will turn to gaze at, and people will 
come long railway- journeys just to say that they have 
seen it — the beauty-spot of the Mediterranean transported 
to Northern shores.” 

Grace felt inclined to say, “Yes, the critic may mock 
you, and say that it is vulgar to do such a thing, but you 
will have been the first to do it, and before the United 
States are fifty years older, your example will be copied 
all over America, to delight millions who will never have 
the opportunity of seeing the originals.” 

She did not say it — it would have been bathos to say it. 
But she felt the immensity of the possibilities of this new 
form of Art. 

“ Grace, may I tell your father ? ” he asked. 

“ Of course, and anyone else you choose. Everyone 
seems anxious for me to do it, because they know how 
good you are, and what you can offer me. But I cannot 


286 


Grace Lorraine 


marry you for a long while yet — I don’t know how long, 
for it will not be until my heart tells me that Roger is dead, 
and my heart still tells me that he will return, so the day 
cannot be yet.” 

* * * * * * * 

He had gained the consent which he so coveted, but he 
was fearful still. He wondered if he should ever kiss the 
beautiful lips which had made the promise. 

He started. He dreamed that he had heard a bird of 
ill-omen moaning to him that she never would be his, that 
her boy-hero would rise from his grave to step between 
them. But it was only a gull sailing seaward to his couch 
on the summer wave. 

This was in a day-dream while he sauntered down 
through the dusk to the little watchmaker in Seacombe, 
who also kept the few poor jewels which might be 
purchased in the place. The millionaire threw down a 
shilling for the evening’s hire of a certain article, and 
went back to Via Pacis with it in his pocket. 

He need not have been so apprehensive about those lips, 
for when he called after dinner, she received him alone, and 
met him at the door with an ungrudged kiss. 

“ I know what an engaged girl ought to do,” she said. 
“ I have been engaged before — for one day.” 

He could read the agony which underlay the jest, but 
the jest had a kindly purpose, to tell the lover that he was 
to have the rights of a betrothed. 

“ See, Grace,” he said, producing from his pocket the 
cluster of brass rings with numbers on them which jewellers 
use to take the measure of a finger. 

“For the ring ? ” she said, putting out her hand with a 
smile in which he read a note of pathos. 

“ It needn’t cost much ; it will be a very little one,” he 
said. He did not tell her that a representative of Tiffany's 
would be leaving London at midnight with various styles 
of settings for her to choose from, for the stone which he 
had ordered for her. 

He did not stay with her long ; he excused himself on 
the ground that he had promised to have a long talk with 


Grace consents to marry Mr. Ebbutt 287 

her father. He did not wish to weary her, and he had 
a matter to attend to at home after that. 

But he came back after breakfast the next morning, 
accompanied by a tall young man, who looked so much 
more a millionaire than he did and bowed very low to Grace 
in the bare Abbot’s Lodging. 

The morocco leather pouch which the tall young man 
produced from a deep pocket on the inner face of his waist- 
coat contained a number of magnificent diamond rings, 
with various kinds of settings. All of them fitted Grace. 
Mr. Ebbutt had sent a trunk ’phone of her size to this 
young man, who was waiting for it at the shop, at ten p.m. 
Tiffany’s would not think it good business to leave a man 
of Mr. Ebbutt ’s wealth untempted by sending down empty 
settings, even if they had them. 

“ Am I to choose whichever of these rings I prefer ? ” 
said the dazzled Grace. “ I would much rather have 
a less valuable one.” 

" Whichever setting you prefer,” said Mr. Ebbutt. “ I 
have chosen a much more valuable stone than any of these 
for your ring.” 

“ What wicked waste ! ” protested the practical Grace, 
who had now known poverty for two years, and wondered 
how many years of their present income these things 
represented. 

“Not at all,” said Mr. Ebbutt. “ Good diamonds, 
bought from reliable people, are a constant form of insur- 
ance among wealthy Jews.” 

“ Well, if you put it like that, Maecenas, I shall not feel 
so guilty. Of course, I’m frightfully grateful to you for 
wanting to give me* such a lovely present. Only I did not 
think that it was right.” 

“ Show her the stone I have chosen, Mr. Chapin,” said 
the millionaire, and from another inside pocket the jeweller 
produced a smaller morocco case, from which, further 
enclosed in many wrappings, he produced a large rose- 
coloured diamond of extraordinary brilliance for its colour. 

" There, madame,” he said, “ you behold the famous 
* pink diamond,’ which would have belonged to an Empress, 
but for the revolution in Brazil.” 


288 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I have known for years that Tiffany’s possessed this 
diamond, and the price they put on it, but I never thought 
of purchasing it until I had a reason, and what better 
reason could anyone need than I have ? ” Mr. Ebbutt said 
gallantly. 

“ Is it really an investment for you to put so much money 
into your wife’s diamonds ? — tell me truly.” 

“ Honestly — it is quite sound.” 

“ Then I shall be extravagantly proud of owning such a 
famous diamond,” confessed Grace, and proceeded to 
choose a setting. 

“ Well, make it up in that setting, and send it down 
again in the least number of days that can be managed, 
please,” said Mr. Ebbutt to the jeweller. “ Would you 
like my housekeeper to send you up some luncheon before 
you go ? ” 

“No, thank you, sir. She gave me such a very sub- 
stantial breakfast.” 

It took few minutes to pack up so many thousand pounds’ 
worth of gems, and Mr. Ebbutt took Grace out to see some 
work on the estate, at the same time as he showed the 
jeweller to the monastery gate, where the car was waiting 
to take him back to the station. He wished to spare her 
the embarrassment of thanking him. 

* * * * * * * 

It was the sudden arrival of Hestia Myrtle at Via Pacis 
— something which she discovered from Hestia — which 
made Grace give up waiting for Roger, and agree to fix a 
date for her wedding. 

She arranged with Mr. Ebbutt that it should take place 
in less than two months, and at an early day he motored 
his beautiful fiancee, with her father, into Plymouth, to 
see their mutual lawyer, Mr. Skewen. 

The settlements were of the simplest, though they 
involved such a large amount of money. The item of 
overpowering interest to Mr. Lorraine was that the entire 
Seacombe and Via Pacis estate, which he had sold to Mr. 
Ebbutt, was at his son-in-law’s death to pass back to Grace 
and her heirs, and that even during his lifetime all moneys 


Grace consents to marry Mr. Ebbutt 289 

arising from it were to be paid over to her as a jointure, 
thus giving her personal control of the money to which she 
would some day have succeeded if her father had not been 
ruined by the war. 

***** * * 

Retiring and unpresuming as Mr. Ebbutt was, and 
flattered as she was to possess it, wearing the famous 
diamond was like a gnawing pain to Grace. For she could 
not move her left hand without its radiance and magnifi- 
cence arresting her eye. 

And what was it ? Not only a glorious gem shining on a 
white and slender hand, but an outward and visible sign 
that she had abandoned all hope of Roger’s return, and 
consented to be bound to another — who, though, inside his 
skin, he was one of the dearest and worthiest men she had 
ever met, yet was so different from the boy who had gone 
forth in the flower of his youth and strength and manly 
beauty, bursting with joy and pride that at last he was 
going to be allowed to risk his life for his country, and had 
sealed his high purpose with his blood. 

And her fiance had accentuated her pain by putting up 
in the parish church, with Mr. Wynyard's permission, one 
of the new brasses, showing Roger in uniform — a fine 
portrait as well as a fine revival of a medieval art. 

As the time for her wedding drew near, she grew more and 
more depressed about it. And her pain was aggravated 
by the fact that she had to keep it a secret from the two 
people with whom her life was principally spent — her father 
and Mr. Ebbutt, a father who looked a different man since 
he saw his misfortunes retrieved, and a fiance, who was 
so devoted and asked so little. 


19 


CHAPTER X L I 


THE VILLA ELENA : 

HOW GRACE TOOK HESTIA TO HER BOSOM 
EAR the southern edge of Taormina stands a 



IN beautiful little palazzo, once occupied by an English 
poetess and song-writer. Exquisite portions of its Gothic 
exterior remain, while its interior has the picturesqueness 
and conveniences of an old farmhouse modernized for a 
week-end cottage. One of its special charms is a large 
palm garden, surrounded by a high wall, pierced in two 
places by Gothic windows, taken from some demolished 


palace. 


Grace knew that poetess well, and had taken various 
photographs of the house and garden. The Villa Elena, as 
it is called, was one of the first features overlooked by his 
architect which she induced Mr. Ebbutt to introduce into 
the New Taormina. 

But Mr. Jones was enthusiastic when once his attention 
had been called to it, because he saw that, given a good 
aspect to make it a sunbath, a garden with such a wall to 
protect it from the wind presented the best chances for 
growing at Via Pacis the palms, aloes, cacti, the gigantic 
stocks, the air-sweetening friesias of Sicily. He made that 
garden on the hill-slope, excavating it to fifty feet down 
from the top of its enclosing wall on the upper side. 

Hestia, since the success of “ The C.O.,” the musical- 
comedy published in her own name, had been selling at 
fancy prices all the songs she had written since she went 
to Via Pacis. She had, fortunately, when they had 
been offered all round the trade in vain, always piled them 


290 


How Grace took Hestia to her Bosom 291 

in the empty wardrobe of the third bedroom in her little 
monk’s house, and had forgotten them until she was so 
pestered by agents to write them a song for this or that 
singer or revue. She had the temperament of the age ; 
that was why her music suited the public taste so well. 

She had accumulated two thousand pounds, and her 
income was always increasing, because her brief colla- 
boration with Dal Dryander had taught her the various 
kinds of rights which each musical production ought to 
yield, and always to stand out for advances and royalties, 
instead of selling anything right out. 

Feeling the need of a holiday in May, having been 
exploited by shrewd agents for the London season, she 
had gone down to her apartments at Via Pacis, which she 
had been obliged to resign on account of the increase in 
her income, but would not have to vacate until the end of 
the year. 

As Hestia was unaware that anyone at Via Pacis knew 
of her liaison with Roger, she had no mauvaise honte in 
meeting Grace or any of the Fellowship, and by a stern 
effort Grace made herself greet her as if nothing had 
happened. She did not forget that it might give her 
some clue for judging Roger ; it would at any rate show 
her how Hestia had come through the ordeal. 

It certainly had not degraded her, any more than her 
success had spoiled her. Beyond the fact that her mourn- 
ing came from very expensive shops, and that she was 
daintier than ever about her gloves and slippers, there was 
nothing to show that she was a lion — except that she had 
beside her piano a pile of music which bore her name. 
She was in mourning because she had heard from Mr. 
Sylvester that Roger’s death was now confirmed. 

She was fascinated with the New Taormina, and forced 
Grace, in spite of herself, to show her over it. What 
fascinated her most was the Villa Elena. 

She went by herself the next day to Mr. Ebbutt’s 
agency in the town, and finding that the rent was only 
fifty pounds a year, and that the terms of the lease were 
three, seven, or fourteen years, decided to take it at once. 

The agent asked her for references (for which she gave 

19* 


292 


Grace Lorraine 


her banker and Mr. Sylvester, who had welcomed her 
with sincere homage), and informed her that all lettings 
on the estate were subject to the approval of Mr. Ebbutt. 
Her application should be forwarded to Mr. Ebbutt ’s 
lawyers at Plymouth that very afternoon, and no 
unnecessary delay would be incurred. 

Her name meant nothing to him. He congratulated 
himself on a piece of good business, and thought that 
he would very likely get a telephone from Plymouth 
settling the matter up “ right away.” He could not 
anticipate what a storm his letter would raise in the 
sanctum of Mr. Skewen. 

“ It's a plot — it’s a damnable plot ! ” cried the ordinarily 
peaceful and sanctimonious man. “ However,” he added, 
“ there’s one thing to be thankful for — a word from Miss 
Lorraine to Mr. Ebbutt and she won’t get her lease.” 

So great a personage was Miss Lorraine in his eyes 
since her engagement that he took the train down to 
Via Pacis to consult her wishes in a personal interview. 

In her presence his steam evaporated. In spite of what 
had happened, and her determination never to be friends 
with Hestia again, Grace had felt a thrill of pleasure when 
she had encountered Hestia, sublimely unconscious, feeding 
the pigeons in the cloister. They, at any rate, could see 
no change in her ; they were sitting on her wrists and 
shoulders as confidently as when she used to come into 
the cloister every morning. 

“ That woman,” the lawyer had begun, " wishes to 
take the house, provisionally named the Villa Elena, in 
New Taormina.” 

“ Is there anything to prevent her doing so ? ” asked 
Grace, not thinking of the personal equation. 

“ Well, you don’t want her living there, right under 
your eyes, after what she has done, I take it ? ” 

“ If she isn’t living there, she could be living in the 
monastery, which is nearer, couldn’t she ? ” asked Grace. 

She was only asking for information, but it sounded 
to the lawyer like an objection. 

“ Not for long. She has resigned already, under Rule 
ten, and she has to vacate on the thirty-first of December.” 


How Grace took Hestia to her Bosom 293 


“ Of course ! I forgot," she said, and waited for him 
to proceed. 

“ Will you mention the matter to Mr. Ebbutt, or shall 
I ? " 

“ Oh, I think you’d better put the application forward 
in the usual way. It has nothing to do with me — yet — 
whom Mr. Ebbutt accepts for his tenants." 

“ But it has something to do with you, Miss Lorraine, 
for she will still be here when you are married, and Mr. 
Ebbutt knows nothing, so he will pass her." 

“ I never contemplated anything else. I see no reason 
why she should not be passed." 

“ But you know what has happened." 

“ Do you expect me to be hard on her, when she is in 
decent mourning for Mr. Wynyard instead of engaging 
herself to be married ? " blazed out Grace. She had an 
heiress’s temper at times. 

“ Oh, as you wish. She has given Mr. Sylvester as a 
reference, and with his backing, of course it will go 
through." 

“ Say that I wish it, too, Mr. Skewen, will you ? " 

“ It shall be done." He strongly disapproved, but as 
his object in coming had been to please Grace, it was not 
politic to oppose her. 

When the letter agreeing to Hestia’s tenancy arrived, 
it was stated to be on the recommendation of Brooke 
Sylvester, Esq., and Miss Grace Lorraine. 

Hestia went to look for Grace. It was the proverbial 
coal of fire on- her head that Grace should do this, though 
Grace might not know the just cause and impediment 
against it. 

But Hestia thanked her as if she had known, and the 
warmth of her gratitude came like balm out of Gilead to 
Grace, for it was as though Hestia was striving to make 
the amende. 

“ Hestia," she said, “ play to me Saul never wanted 
to hear David on his harp more than I want to hear your 
fingers wandering over the keys, in one of those things 
which never ended, in which you were playing your mood, 
and not keeping to any tune." 


294 


Grace Lorraine 


Hestia sat down to the piano, and played Tommy 
Atkins’s music — defiant ragtime march-tunes, merry 
patter-tunes, sung by music-hall lions, and sentimental 
ballads, like “ Keep the Home Fires Burning,” winding 
up with “ Drake’s Drums” and “ Admirals All.” 

Neither of them mentioned Roger, but Grace knew 
that Roger must have been present to Hestia’s mind 
from the first note to the last, only she pictured Roger 
standing where Hestia’s eyes were on him, and Hestia 
pictured him behind her with his hand on her hair. 

Neither thought of him mournfully. To both he was 
the gay, gallant Englishman of his breeding, who will go 
all the way to the Equator to meet lions or what more 
formidable game he can find. 

“ Oh, Hestia,” said Grace, completely forgetting her 
resolutions about the girl, “ I can’t thank you enough ! 
Come often and play to me, won’t you ? You set the 
springs of my heart running again. Now let’s go and 
see your house, shall we, for a tonic the other way ? It 
was built from photographs which I took of Maud White’s 
house at Taormina. Horace Jones had forgotten it, so 
I may be able to help you with some suggestions, if you 
want them.” 

* ” Want them ? ” said Hestia. “ I should think I did ! 
— I’ve no ideas beyond draperies.” 

“ I’ll ask Mr. Ebbutt if I may give you some, of the 
Sicilian drawn-thread work which I left in the house when 
it was sold, and some of the Caltagirone pots. He can 
easily spare some — there are plenty of them.” 

“ It would be very nice to have some real Sicilian things 
in it, but I couldn’t take them from you, Grace. You’ll 
want them yourself when you’re married, to remind you 
of old times.” 

She said this because she felt as if she could not let 
Grace make her presents. But her remorse was ill-timed, 
for it made Grace answer very hurriedly : 

" I shan’t want to recall old times, Hestia. I shall 
feel more like wanting a new heaven and a new earth.” 

“ Why, aren’t you happy, Grace ? ” 

“ On your honour, you won’t tell anybody, Hestia ? ” 


How Grace took Hestia to her Bosom 295 


“ On my honour.” 

“ Well, then, how could I be happy ? Maecenas — 
that’s Mr. Ebbutt — is a perfect darling, and he’s awfully 
good to me. But I promised to wait for Roger, and I 
don’t believe that Roger’s dead — even now.” 

“ Why, I heard that you had had positive news of it 
from an officer in his Regiment, before you consented to 
marry Mr. Ebbutt ! ” 

“Yes, we had — he’s a Captain Dicey, and he’s staying 
at the sanatorium still.” 

“ Then why don’t you believe it ? ” 

“I’ve got a presentiment that it is not true. They 
never found his body, you know, and that’s what makes 
me so unhappy about marrying Mr. Ebbutt.” 

Hestia did not hear the last part of the sentence. 

“ Oh, Grace,” she cried, “ do you think it could be 
true the other way ? ” 

“Yes, I believe it — in the bottom of my heart.” 

“ Oh, Lord, what a Magnificat I’d raise ! ” She did 
not think of what Grace might think — she did not 
remember Grace at all, or anybody, or anything else. 
She was obsessed with the one single thought, that Roger 
might yet be on the earth. Her eyes were full of the 
light which never was on land or sea. 

Grace’s heart went out to her for loving him so. “ Oh, 
Hestia,” she said, “ I'm so glad that you’re back ! You’re 
the one person here with whom I dare to be natural. . . . 
What are you going to call your house, dear ? Shall 
you let it remain the Villa Elena ? ” 

“ No — people would think that I drop my h’s.” 

“ What shall you call it, then ? ” 

“ Mr. Sylvester says I ought to call it the Downs Vestae 
— Hestia is the Greek for Vesta, you know.” 

“ I didn’t — is it ? ” 

“ He says so. I suppose I got it through my mother. 
She belonged to one of the pure Greek families which you 
only meet in the islands ; her name was Murtos. My 
father married her on one of his cruises.” 

“ She might have been a Lesbian, Hestia.” 

“ Perhaps — I don’t know.” Hestia did not know 


296 


Grace Lorraine 


that Sappho was a Lesbian, and Grace did not explain. 
But it explained a good deal to Grace, who had prejudices 
about Southern European morals. 

“ Murtos, my mother’s name, means Myrtle,” said 
Hestia, harking back. “ That’s the reason why I called 
myself ‘ Hestia Myrtle,’ so it isn’t as far-fetched as it 
sounds. I think I shall call it The Myrtle House, and 
have banks of myrtle just opposite the windows in the 
garden-wall, to justify the name to sightseers who invade 
my privacy through the windows.” 

“ Yes, that’s a pretty name,” said Grace. “ Let’s hurry 
up and get there.” 


CHAPTER XLII 


HOW MR. SHAPLEY ACCUSED HESTIA IN 
GRACE’S PRESENCE 

HE co-operative stores of New Taormina had an 



i excellent furnishing department, where at co- 
operative prices Hestia was able to buy all the everyday 
necessaries of furniture. Her drawing-room and dining- 
room and study she furnished from the art dealers of 
Exeter and Plymouth, to which Grace and Mr. Ebbutt 
motored her. 

Grace helped her daily and hourly in pushing forward 
her preparations, so as to have the house ready for the 
summer and autumn holidays, which Hestia intended to 
spend at The Myrtle House, where she would have far 
more leisure for composing than she could command in 
London. 

While she was helping her to furnish, Grace could not 
but notice how Roger pervaded the house. In the study 
where Hestia did her composing, there hung over the 
piano in a frame of silver bay-leaves the full-length 
photograph of Roger in uniform, taken just before he 
went down to Seacombe to say good-bye — the photograph 
from which Mr. Ebbutt had had the memorial brass 
executed. There were Kodaks of Roger, or taken by 
Roger, on every mantelpiece ; there were articles with 
regimental devices everywhere, and on her dressing- 
table was the gold matchbox with the Regimental crest 
and that inscription on it which made it so incriminating. 

Grace longed to discover from Hestia how, in the face 
of this evidence and the evidence which had been betrayed 


297 


298 


Grace Lorraine 


to her, it had been possible for Roger, after a day of con- 
fusion and doubt, to come back prepared for an immediate 
marriage with her. To do anything scurvy or mean was 
not in Roger’s large nature. She was certain that there 
was some explanation, and was hoping that it would come 
out incidentally, so as to save her from the dreadful ordeal 
of questioning Roger, if he came back from the dead. 

But Hestia threw no light on the subject ; it was obvious 
that she adored him, and the adoration which she paid 
to him could not but have its effect in stimulating the 
feelings of the other, who had a hundred or a thousand 
memories of him where Hestia had one. His manly 
graces, his chivalry, his affection, his contagious gaiety, 
stood out ; his slackness about the realities of life was 
lost in the Great Shadow, expiated by his having been 
caught up in the Fiery Chariot. 

By degrees the girls, losing their shyness of each other, 
fell to talking of Roger and his endearing qualities, and 
then Grace saw more than ever how truly Hestia loved 
him. Hestia, with the Bohemian vein in her nature, was 
better able to understand how Roger could be so happy- 
go-lucky without detracting from his character. While 
she was living in Chelsea some of the best and most 
brilliant people she knew, men and women, in whom 
genius and solid worth had been equally prominent, had 
shown no thought for the morrow. There were great 
actors, for instance, who mounted Shakespearean plays 
as if they were kings, and kept a whole regiment of people 
in sure and constant prosperity, but often had to borrow 
ready-money from their servants. 

To Grace this seemed simply incredible, though it was 
no more foolish than her father’s having lost his fortune 
in the way he did. 

There were points about Roger which had annoyed 
her almost beyond endurance ; his very faults endeared 
him to Hestia. 

Yes ! Hestia’s love for him would have inflamed her 
own, even if the hero-worship in which they indulged had 
not painted him in such glowing colours. 

Certainly, beside this Mr. Ebbutt was not a heroic 


Shapley accuses Hestia to Grace 299 

figure. He moved badly as well as talked badly ; he 
walked on his heels like a Nonconformist clergyman, and 
his clothes, admirably cut as they were, besides being 
gloomy in tint, drooped on him. His heart was of gold, 
but it was inside a quaint casket, and Providence had 
burdened Grace with a fastidious eye. 

And having Hestia, she was not so dependent on 
him for companionship. Rather did she feel like 
Jephthah’s daughter, consoling herself with her girl 
friends before her father sacrificed her to reward the 
Deity. It was not that she was a whit the less grateful 
to Mr. Ebbutt, or really liked him less. She was merely 
growing more and more conscious that he was not her 
ideal husband. 

Hestia, as may be imagined, was the idol of the com- 
munity. Her beauty, her generosity, her light-heartedness 
and her brilliant playing, had always made her a favourite, 
and now that she had confered lustre on the community 
with her success, while she was just as unpretentious and 
friendly, she was at the high tide of popularity. 

This was gall and bitterness to Dal Dryander, who 
had lately come down for the summer, and he wrote to 
the younger Skewen to know if he meant to earn his 
money. 

The hunchback turned over expedients in his mind, 
and came to the conclusion that nothing short of con- 
fronting the two women together with the evidence would 
succeed. 

But how to do it ? He, of course, could not act himself ; 
it would be too dangerous, and he had not the courage or 
the tact. He must leave action to the detective, who 
seemed willing to do anything for pay. Audacity seemed 
to him the best as well as the simplest way. 

So Mr. Shapley, the private inquiry-agent, was promised 
a hundred pounds to carry out the job, and came down to 
Seacombe in the guise of a traveller for electric stoves, 
visiting Mr. Dryander among others. By him he was 
carefully instructed in the habits of the two girls, and 
having watched Grace into Hestia’s garden, and seen, 
through the windows in the wall, the pair of them make 


300 


Grace Lorraine 


their way to a part remote from the house, he boldly 
walked in, and went up to them. Taking off his hat to 
Grace, he said, “ I am Detective Shapley, who wrote to 
you about a lady who passed herself off as the wife of 
Lieutenant Wynyard, of the East Surrey Regiment. 
This is the lady who was at the Hotel de Luxe with 
Lieutenant Wynyard. You would not believe me. Here 
she is.” 

Grace was furious. " I never asked you for evidence,” 
she said. “ I refused to take any notice of the matter 
at all, and you know that perfectly well, and I am going 
in to telephone for a policeman, unless you leave the 
garden instantly.” 

“ Madame, there will not be the slightest occasion to 
do that. I only came into the garden to do you a service, 
and if you do not esteem my services, I have no desire to 
force them upon you.” 

He could afford to be polite, for he imagined that his 
poisoned dart had gone home* 

Mr. Skewen, junior, thought differently. Mr. Dryander’s 
spite had already been vented on Grace, when she was 
first informed of the incident : it might have poisoned her 
married happiness with Roger. But his principal spite was 
against Hestia, and it was because Grace had failed him 
altogether in that campaign that he had begun another. 
It was not Grace, but everyone else at Via Pacis whom 
on this occasion he wished to be informed. By hook or 
by crook Mr. Dryander intended Hestia to be hounded 
from Via Pacis, including New Taormina. 

Mr. Skewen, junior^ accordingly informed the detective 
that his employer would pay no remuneration or expenses 
for this trip, but that he would reward him with double 
the fee when he had effected the purpose for which he was 
sent. 

Private Detective Shapley, after a few days spent in 
preparations, took the train back to Seacombe Road. 
Before he could take any further steps in the matter he 
had something to say to Mr. Dryander. 


CHAPTER XLIII 


WHAT HESTIA AND GRACE TOLD EACH OTHER WHEN 
MR. SHAPLEY HAD GONE 

ESTIA mistook the expression on Grace’s face. 



ri She thought it said, “ Well, Hestia, what have you 
to say ? ” whereas it really meant something entirely 
different. 

“ I did go to the ‘ de Luxe ’ with Roger,” she confessed. 
“ Can you ever forgive me, Grace ? ” 

" I could forgive any woman’s losing her head with 
Roger.” 

Hestia thought that she meant because he was so 
attractive, but Grace meant that he would be so inno- 
cently guilty. Grace herself was not the woman to yield 
to a sudden temptation. 

“ I have always been in love with Roger, but he never 
was in love with me, though he asked me to marry him.” 

“ When ? ” asked Grace, rather eagerly. 

“ Oh, at Kingsburgh, on the Saturday before you told 
him that he could marry you. I knew — everyone at 
Via Pacis knew — that you had persistently refused him.” 

“ And what did you say to him ? — No, I suppose I 
have no right to ask that ! ” 

“ Why not ? I don’t tell everybody, but I told Roger, 
and I will tell you, that I was married already, to. a beast 
of a husband, whom I had not seen for years, and whom 
I meant to divorce at the first opportunity which he gave 
me.” 

“ Poor Hestia ! And I took him away from you as 
soon as you were married to him — in that way.” 


301 


302 


Grace Lorraine 


“ It was my fault, not his. But when he came back 
from Seacombe — having quarrelled with you ...” 

“ It wasn’t a quarrel. ... It was Roger’s first proper 
assertion of spirit — he was refusing to be the spaniel any 
longer.” 

“ Well, when Roger came back from Seacombe, an 
exiled lover ...” 

“ Abdicated.” 

“ ... An abdicated lover, and was on his way to 
the front, my heart went out to him.” Then, somehow, 
in sentences too broken for print, she managed to convey 
to Grace how she had taken him to the Musical Comedy 
dinner, how jealous she had been because he was 
monopolized by the beauties of the stage to whom she 
had introduced him, and how, when the Zeppelin attack 
had forced them to pass the night at a hotel, she had 
succumbed to the temptation as they were entering the 
Hotel de Luxe — at a moment while the ink was hardly 
dry in the letter which Grace had written when she had 
made up her mind to marry him. 

Hestia was honest ; she did not put it down to nervous- 
ness alone, though it was that which supplied the irre- 
sistible momentum. 

Then for a while the shame of her confession struck 
her dumb, but Grace, who had forborne from interrupting, 
said, “ The best thing I can do to comfort you, dear, is 
to tell you that it is an old story to me. I have forgiven 
you long ago. That reptile who has been here just now 
wrote and told me about it soon after Roger went to 
France.” 

“ And you forgave me, Grace ? ” 

“ I forgave you, even when I did not know that you 
had a husband living, and could only marry Roger in 
this way.” 

“It is generous of you to call it that. But it was not 
a deliberate union of those who could not be united in 
marriage. It was an impromptu act of feminineness 
in which fright, love, jealousy and selfishness were all 
urging.” 

“ I don’t know which is the easiest or hardest to forgive. 


What Hestia and Grace told Each Other 303 


But I hope that my trespasses may be forgiven as heartily 
as I have forgiven this trespass against myself.” 

“ How could you trespass, Grace, with your serene 
innocence ? ” 

“Not, I think, in that way, but there are sins more 
subtle into which the Ice-maiden herself might fall.” 

“ I think you may rest assured.” 

“ I would I might. May I ask you a question, Hestia 
— which I never thought that one decent woman could 
have asked of another decent woman ? ” 

“ I have not the right to refuse to answer any question 
from you.” 

“ This is my question : If Roger were alive, and 
because you could not marry him, asked you to be his 
unwedded wife, would you do it openly before God and 
man ? ” 

“ I would do it openly before God and man and this 
little village, where the mills of scorn would grind us 
into smaller dust than anywhere else on the earth.” 

“ Hestia, I never knew what generosity meant before. 
You remember Our Lord saying ‘ Greater love hath no 
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends ' ? 
It would be as true to say * Greater love hath no woman than 
this, that a woman lay down her love for her friend.’ 
Love is life to a woman. She does not live for works, 
but for faith. It is man who must have everything 
concrete ; few men are born with the fine abstraction of 
a woman, and those few must preach with word or pen, 
or they will perish by the way.” 

“ Are men so different from women ? ” 

“ Take Roger. You know what a ripping man he 
was. His flesh was willing, but his spirit weak. He 
would go through hell for his country, or either of us. 
He had the highest ideals of the Public School boy's 
code. Yet when I offered him his heart’s desire, he 
allowed you to sacrifice yourself in his place, because he 
let himself believe that your love was nothing in respect 
of his, that you were only giving up a toy, where he would 
be giving up his soul, or his faith, or something precious. 
What right had he to believe that the love of which you 


804 


Grace Lorraine 


had just given him the highest proof that a woman who 
is pure in heart can give, was a cut flower, which might 
be thrown away, while his was a living plant, to be watered 
and fenced ? Men are too apt to think of ‘ Eveleen’s 
Bower ’ in that light.” 

" You’re too hard on him, Grace. I was honest when 
I said what I said to him that morning — that was why 
he listened to me. I had wanted Roger to make love 
to me, always. If he had been like the brilliant Bohemians 
I knew in Chelsea, the men who made life as full of colour 
for us as lords and cavalry officers make it for the Society 
maiden, do you think that he would have spared me as he 
did ? I should have been his willing victim long before. 
I had no strength to resist him, no desire to, no principles 
to overcome. I was just his for the asking, and he never 
dreamed it. Until that night he never once kissed me or 
caressed me in a way that a man would have been ashamed 
to caress a flapper.” 

It did not make it easier for Grace to know how 
chivalrous Roger had been. From Hestia’s own lips 
she had heard that Roger had fulfilled the conditions 
which she meant to lay down for him if their engage- 
ment was to be followed by marriage. But now a fresh 
problem beset her. Had she been blameless ? Was she 
not forced to confess to herself that she knew that Roger’s 
hesitation on that night in New Bedford Place must be 
based on something deeper than pique ? Was it like 
Roger to fling away the prize, for which he had been 
straining all his life, in a fit of pique ? 

She might have known that it was something which 
touched Roger’s honour that made him hesitate. She 
might have known that it was some great thing which 
let Roger so much as hesitate. 

She had done no probing. She had taken it for granted 
that his heart was sound. And the irony of it was that 
she had not wanted him then, that she had only acted 
in the way she did so as not to fail him. If she had but 
known that he had other wishes, she had a double reason 
for not marrying him. 

And the cruellest irony of all was that now that she 


What Hestia and Grace told Each Other 805 


knew how he had striven with himself — that happy-go- 
lucky self — before and after that night when the powers 
of the air were loosed, she loved him and hungered for 
him more than she ever had before. The evil that this 
man had done had not lived after him. It had been 
buried with him. 

It was her turn now to offer up a burnt sacrifice. She 
said nothing. She only kissed Hestia. But Hestia could 
see that a mighty struggle had been passing, and that it 
was now spent, though she looked in vain for the expres- 
sion of relief which she had expected to dawn over Grace’s 
face. 


20 


CHAPTER XLIV 


GRACE HURRIES ON HER MARRIAGE WITH MR. EBBUTT 

I T was in a repentant mood that Grace went up to 
the Manor House the next morning. 

“I am afraid that I have been neglectful, Maecenas, 
in my excitement over helping Hestia to get her house 
ready. It was like building another Taormina on a small 
scale — trying to make the Villa Elena look still Sicilian 
after it was furnished." 

" I did not find you neglectful, Grace. When you’re 
going to be mine all my life, I can’t expect you to go 
on being as energetic as you were over the ‘ Greek-or- 
Roman ’ theatre.’’ He used the phrase as a joke now. 
The first time he had used it, she showed him the words 
“ Graeco-Roman theatre,’’ printed under a picture in a 
book, and he had understood. 

"Yes, I am going to be yours all my life, and I’m 
going to try to be just as unremitting as I was when we 
were having that glorious excitement. I will try hard." 

"You make me teel as if I were your father, and you 
were a prodigal daughter — L' Enfant Prodigue — I know 
the French for that. ... I saw it at the Duke of York’s 
Theatre." 

" ‘ U Enfant Prodigue ’ does not mean ‘ a prodigal 
daughter,’ but * the prodigal son.’ " 

" I don’t run foreign languages so fine as that," he 
said ; he had made a bad joke — he knew it was a bad joke — 
to hide his emotion. Grace had never made such a direct 
protestation to him before. 

306 


Grace hurries on her Marriage 30T 

“ Our wedding-day will be in a fortnight/’ she said. 
“ I wonder why we put it off so long ? We might just 
as well have had it sooner.” 

“We should have had it that very day if I could have 
said what I felt. But you know why we put it off. We 
wanted to make perfectly certain that poor Roger Wynyard 
was dead.” 

Grace was intensely grateful to him for the fine feeling 
which made him say we instead of you, but she said, 
“ Yes, it was my wish, I know, but I wish that I hadn’t 
wished it now. It is such a strain on one’s nerves, this 
waiting, waiting, though one knows that it will never 
happen.” 

“ But, Grace,” he said, taking courage from her affec- 
tion and submissiveness, “ if you wish to change the 
day, it can be changed. I have only to go up to London 
for a license, and then we can be married the day after 
to-morrow. The Rev. Mr. Wynyard is at home.” 

“ Well, go, dear, and let’s get it over.” 

“ I will go. The villagers will be rather disappointed — 
they were going to have made a very grand affair of it.” 

“ Never mind. It will save them a lot of money,” she 
said, in what seemed to him a strange voice. “ They 
can’t have begun their preparations yet.” 

“ And I’ll telephone to Goodbody at once that the 
wedding-breakfast and fete will be the day after to-morrow, 
instead of Tuesday week.” 

“ Need we have them, if we hasten on the marriage ? ” 

So accustomed was she to his falling in with her arrange- 
ments, that she expected him to say no, but he said, in 
the most conciliatory way, it is true, but quite firmly, 
“Yes, we must have the wedding-breakfast and the fete. 
We can easily send round word of the change of date. Mr. 
Skewen at Plymouth is the only person invited who does 
not live in the neighbourhood.” 

He almost made up for his refusal by not asking her 
reasons for wishing to dispense with ceremonies. He 
attributed it to the same nervous excitement which had 
made her wish the wedding hurried on. 

To smooth his refusal, he said, “ I should be very glad to 

20* 


808 


Grace Lorraine 


dispense with the ceremonies myself, but it would never 
do for the new owner to marry the old Squire's daughter, 
and restore the property to the race which has held it for 
four hundred years, without killing the baron of beef — 
I’ve ordered a baron of beef. I gave that Plymouth 
caterer, Goodbody, the order for everything weeks ago, so 
I don’t expect that there will be many hitches, though he 
has got to speed up. He must do it on his third gear.” 

“ May we go to John o’ Groats for our honeymoon ? ” 

” What’s John o’ Groats, Grace ? ” 

“ The farthest point north in Scotland.” 

" It’s out of bounds, I’m afraid. People are only 
allowed to go half-way up Scotland nowadays. They’re 
Btricter with Scotland than they are with public-houses — 
though it’s nothing to do with whiskey.” He felt the im- 
portance of being jocular. 

“ Where can we go so as to have the least chance of 
meeting anyone we know ? ” 

“ Notting Hill — no, Mr. Rufus has got a sister at 
Notting Hill." 

“ Seriously,” she said, laughing. 

” Why, London, of course. There is no place like London 
for a person who wishes to get away from her friends.” 

” The best plan will be not to settle on the hotel until 
we are in the train, then none of our friends here can know.” 


CHAPTER XLV 


WHAT MR. SHAPLEY SAID TO MR. DRYANDER 

D AL DRYANDER received his invitation to the 
wedding. There had been nothing to connect 
his name with the visits of Private-Detective Shapley, or 
the letters from Mr. Skewen, junior, to Grace. But he was 
unable to be present. 

He had gone up to town to see that revolting specimen 
of the disanointed of the Lord, the younger Skewen, after 
Shapley had called on him to announce the failure of his 
mission at The Myrtle House. 

On his return he received a visit from Shapley, to whom, 
acting on instructions, Mr. Skewen, junior, had refused to 
pay his fee of a hundred pounds. 

“ Show him up, Singer/’ he said to his servant. What- 
ever Mr. Dryander’ s failings were, want of what he called 
moral courage was not one of them. 

“You have come to demand that hundred pounds, I 
suppose ? ’’ he said, when Shapley was shown up to his 
study. “ Well, you won’t get it.’’ 

“No. As you diddled me out of the hundred, I came to 
get your cheque for a thousand," 

“ Is this wit or midsummer madness ? ’’ 

“ It will be madness if you don’t give it to me." 

“ I should be mad if I did. I don't even know what 
you’re trying to blackmail me on." 

“Try and guess, Mr. Dryander. You’re too modest 
about your powers of imagination." 

309 


310 


Grace Lorraine 


“ I’ve had enough of your impudence, Shapley. Get 
out of my house l ” 

“ Softly, Mr. Dryander, while I make a few remarks 
about the scenery, to see if that will put you into a more 
amiable mood. 

“ Your house, to start with, has a very pleasant position. 
You are nearer the sea than any other inhabitant of Sea- 
combe or Via Pacis except the coastguard ...” 

“ I have never thought about it, but I expect I am.” 

“ Naturally, it was a matter of no importance to you,” 
he said, looking towards the composer for his assent. 

“ None whatever.” 

“You also enjoy an excellent view. You can look right 
down the inlet to the open sea, and people out at sea can 
get a full view of your charming house.” 

“ I suppose so.” 

“ That again is a matter of no importance to you, 
although perhaps you like to watch the pleasure-boats. 
You enjoy these innocent pleasures. You are also a 
humorist, Mr. Dalberg Dryander ; you like to frighten 
people at night by imitating German lamp-signalling from 
your top-windows ? ” 

“ Look here, Shapley, you’re going a great deal too far ! 
I’ve put up with your impudence so far, but unless you clear 
out at once, I’ll ring the bell for my man, first of all to hear 
what you are saying, so that I may prosecute you for black- 
mailing, and then to throw you out.” 

“ The bodyguard, who changed his name from Schlesinger 
to Ashley Singer, and has special leave from the German 
War Office to stay in England ? ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean, but he’ll break your 
neck if I tell him to, without being particular as to the 
reason.” 

“ No, he won’t — he’s my friend, not yours. He has 
been promised his commission on the money I am going to 
get from you, and in spite of this you are going to keep him 
on and double his wages.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! And now, Shapley, let me inform you 
that I have been a poker-player — and accustomed to play 
for very high stakes. I know a good deal about bluffing, 


What Shapley said to Mr. Dryander 311 

and I’m going to see your hand.” Saying this, he rang the 
bell. 

When the man came, a strapping six-footer, of tremen- 
dous physical strength, whose bullet-head betrayed his 
origin, though he had let his hair grow, and brushed it in 
the English way, Mr. Dryander said : 

“ Singer, I want you to be a witness of what this man 
says.” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ He is demanding the payment of a thousand pounds — 
is that not so, Shapley ? ” 

" Quite in order.” 

“ And to make me pay this, he accuses me of being a 
German spy.” He repeated what Shapley had said, word 
for word. “ Those are your words, I think, Shapley ? ” 

“ As good as shorthand notes.” 

“ And now that you have heard his blackmailing 
attempts, I want you to put him out, and if he attempts 
to return, or ever comes here again, set Prinz on him.” 
Prinz was a Great Dane, one of the monsters which are the 
pride of the German nobility. 

“ I will go to summon assistance, sir.” 

" Prinz will do.” 

“ Prinz cannot be found, sir.” 

“ Prinz is at the bottom of the harbour, or I should not 
be here,” said Mr. Shapley. “ Dogs are not so easy to 
corrupt as their masters.” 

“ Well, get some other assistance, Singer, if you need 
assistance to tackle a man half your size.” 

" He is not likely to have come unarmed, sir.” 

“ No, I suppose not. Well, you are a witness to his 
blackmailing — that is enough. He cannot stay here for 
ever. He will need lunch — or, at any rate, dinner — and 
they will not be offered to him here.” 

“ Shall I go to find assistance, sir ? ” 

“ I think you’d better, since you’re not going to tackle 
him yourself.” 

“ Before he goes, since you wish him to be a witness of 
what passes between us, I ask you, are you going to pay me 
that thousand pounds ? ” 


312 


Grace Lorraine 


“ No, I am not.” 

“ Well, then, Schlesinger, ask the constable, who is wait- 
ing for me below, to step up.” 

“ Constable ? ” said Mr. Dryander, changing colour. 

“Yes, constable. He thinks I am serving a process on 
you. Since the amiable Schlesinger has a bad name in 
the village, the police-sergeant at Seacombe sent orders 
to the constable who acts as porter at the monastery to 
accompany me. But he will not have to protect me 
from Schlesinger — he will hear me denounce you as a 
German spy, Mr. Dalberg Dryander, and arrest you. I 
told him to bring his handcuffs with him.” 

“ I’m not frightened of you, Shapley. He won’t dare 
to arrest me without a warrant, and you won’t have taken 
out a warrant, or you would not have imperilled your own 
freedom by trying to blackmail me. You know that the 
first thing I should do, if I was arrested, would be to 
denounce you, and say that the whole charge was trumped 
up to blackmail me.” 

“You must think me very simple, Mr. Dryander, to put 
my head into a noose, unless I was sure of being able to 
pull it out again. Let me tell you a story. 

“ There was once a man who employed a poor inquiry- 
agent to persecute a woman, who was his rival as a 
composer of musical-comedies. The persecution failed, 
because another woman, who was expected to make use of 
the betrayal that this woman was the mistress of her 
betrothed, refused to make use of such an instrument. The 
poor inquiry-agent came to report his failure ; it was his 
first call upon the great man who employed him. The 
door was opened by Fritz here ; that aroused suspicions. 
As the business was so very private, the poor inquiry-agent 
was shown up into the great man’s study. The great 
man, either because he was not ready, or to show his 
importance, sent down word that he would have to keep 
the small man waiting for ten minutes, during which the 
small man, whose suspicions were aroused by the presence 
of Fritz in the house, carried out an examination of the 
study.” 

Mr. Dryander made a grimace. 


What Shapley said to Mr. Dryander 318 

“ It hardly took him ten seconds to notice that very 
clumsy spring in the overmantel, and when he pressed it, 
because this sort of detective-story mystery has a fascina- 
tion for him, a panel swung open and showed him a com- 
plete apparatus for wireless telegraphy, which he happened 
to understand. It was just the same kind of spring as the 
one which you have on your overmantel there, Mr. 
Dryander, as plain as the boil on your nose. We’ll just 
touch that spring, and show you why I did not trouble 
about a warrant, Mr. Dryander. 

" Schlesinger, touch that spring, will you ? ” continued 
Shapley, “ and show the unsuspecting Mr. Dryander what 
he has behind his overmantel.” 

The man-servant touched the spring ; a panel swung 
out, and there was the wireless apparatus as described. 

“ Shut it up again quickly, Schlesinger,” said the 
inquiry-agent. “ It would be so awkward if it was open 
and the constable came up uninvited. 

“ When the poor inquiry-agent went back to London, he 
did not denounce the rich Mr. Dryander. He looked him 
up in ‘ Who’s Who ’ to see whose son he was ; and in the 
pages of the ponderous Vaporeau he looked up the parent- 
age of Herr Dryander, who is the chief assistant of Herr 
Wolff in propagating the stories about the Allies, which are 
chiefly disseminated by wireless. 

" Lo and behold, he was born of the same father and 
mother as our Mr. Dryander — our amiable host here. 
Possibly the Dryander family, now that letters do not 
circulate freely between England and Germany, do their 
family correspondence by wireless.” 

“ I have nothing to do with my brother. I have not seen 
him since I was a boy,” suddenly protested Mr. Dryander. 

“ Perhaps not,” said Shapley, “ but the wireless would 
be useful for signalling to submarines. I was merely giving 
you your pedigree to show you why you ought not to possess 
a wireless plant on the shores of a naval harbour.” 

“ I will give you that thousand-pound cheque,” said Mr. 
Dryander desperately. 

“ Thank you,” said Shapley. “ That will suit us better 
than calling in the constable, won’t it, Schlesinger ? But I 


314 


Grace Lorraine 


forgot part of my story, Mr. Dryander — I forgot to tell 
you how the poor inquiry-agent established an under- 
standing with Fritz.” 

“ I don’t want to hear anything about that swine. I 
shall give him a month’s wages, and pack him off this very 
morning.” 

“You would not be so inconsiderate as that, Mr. 
Dryander. He might want to turn his knowledge of 
your goings-on into money. While he stays here there 
will be honour among thieves.” 

“ How am I to know this ? ” 

“ You will have to take it on trust, unless you prefer 
going to prison to trusting us. I have no love for 
England. I am not English, neither am I German. But 
my name is too like a German name for me to use it with 
proper regard for my health. I hate the English because 
they hate my profession, and exhibit their contempt for it 
and me, whenever they are not in my power.” 

" Then you won’t molest me further ? ” 

" Not if you behave yourself — and remember one thing, 
Dryander.” 

The composer winced under the familiarity, but 
managed to screw out “ What ? ” 

“ That good behaviour means abandoning your persecu- 
tion of those two women. It’s been a dirty job, and I’ve 
hated it, and I won’t have it carried on any more.” 

Mr. Dryander muttered something, 

“ Oh, one other thing — if I were you I should get that 
wireless business and your signalling-lamps out of the 
house. I’m not going to give you away unless you give me 
some reason to — I’m not English, and I don’t care what 
happens to England. It’s only because every uninterned 
German is apt to be Swiss, and we real Swiss are always 
being taken for Germans, that I’m Shapley and not 
Schaepli any longer. The reason why I give you this 
advice is that you’ve none of the makings of the spy about 
you, except your notions of honour.” 


CHAPTER XLVI 


THE MARRIAGE OF GRACE LORRAINE 

S INCE it was at a season when flowers are very 
plentiful, and, for the best of reasons, real floral 
decorations can never be put up more than twenty-four 
hours in advance, and since the artists of Via Pacis, in 
whose charge the decorations had been placed, had deter- 
mined all along that the decorations should be entirely 
floral, to avoid useless expenditure in war time, the hurry- 
ing on of the wedding made little difference to the welcome. 

The building contractor, who had a huge repository near 
the wharf which he had constructed on the inlet, was able 
to lend them all the ropes and posts and planks they 
needed, and the services of all the men he had there, who 
most of them, being Italians, were experts in putting up 
festival framework. And the whole Fellowship of Via Pacis, 
with their wives and families, helped eagerly in gathering 
the flowers and foliage, and festooning them as directed. 

But all the flowers and smiles and good wishes of Via 
Pacis could not lighten the heavy heart of the bride. Not 
to one living soul except Hestia had she given any hint 
of the sacrifice she was making, the dread with which she 
contemplated the future. 

To the bridegroom to whom she was sacrificing she 
was everything which a man could desire in a bride, except 
desirous. She was submissive, she was affectionate, she 
was nervously eager to gratify any whim he might have 
— and he had none, except to please her, and not to deprive 
Via Pacis and the village of their wedding festivities. It 

315 


316 


Grace Lorraine 


was in compliance with his wish that, heavy-hearted 
though she was, she threw herself into them heartily, 
and behaved with the spirit which a Lorraine coming 
back to her splendid inheritance should show. 

The wedding breakfast was held at the Manor House ; 
the Abbot’s Lodging would not contain it. When Harvey 
Wynyard had proposed the health of the bride and bride- 
groom, with due emphasis on the joy of Via Pacis and 
Seacombe at a Lorraine coming into her own, and the 
healths had been drunk with indescribable enthusiasm, 
and the cake had been cut, and the breakfast had broken 
up, so that the bride might say something to each guest 
at a reception in the great hall (with the band from the 
depot of the Devons in the music gallery), Grace made 
her escape across the rock-garden to her own bedroom, 
to fetch the dust-cloak which she had left there for the 
purpose. She had been married in the white cloth gown 
in which she was to have been married to Roger — she 
made that part of the cross which she had to bear. It 
was an admirable travelling dress for a bride. 

" I wanted to see you alone, dear, before we started, 
and this seemed to be the only chance,” she said, but 
she consumed the precious minutes in saying little 
affectionate things to Hestia until it was time for them 
to return. It was not until they were about to go down- 
stairs again that she got out what she had brought 
Hestia upstairs to hear. 

“ Hestia, I want you to make me a promise. It is 
not one you can’t make — I swear that. Will you make 
it ? ” 

It would not have been like Hestia to refuse. 

“Yes,” she answered, gaily and readily, “ I promise. 
What is it ? ” 

“ That when Roger comes back, and my heart tells 
me that he will, if you get your divorce, you will marry 
him. Otherwise, my sacrifice will have been in vain.” 

“ What do you mean, Grace ? ” 

“ I mean that I thought Roger belonged to you, yet 
because I had promised to marry him when he came 
back, I should have done it and robbed you of him. I 


317 


The Marriage of Grace Lorraine 

should never have had the strength to refuse him, when 
I wanted to marry him, so I have married Mr. Ebbutt to 
put it out of my power to marry Roger." 

“ Didn't you wish to marry your husband ? " 

“ The whole thing has been a nightmare to me. You 
can't think how I have dreaded it. But I shall never let 
him know, and you must swear that you will never let 
anyone know. But I had to tell you to compel you to 
marry Roger." 

“ I shan’t need any compelling, Grace, if that happy 
day ever dawns upon the earth, and I can get my divorce. 
But don't let your husband ever guess that you don't 
love him — you had better swear that to me, Grace." 

“ He shall never guess it. I shall be a far better wife 
to him than if I did love him as other wives love their 
husbands. Because then I should often be a spoilt child, 
seeing that I was born spoilt, and have always been 
encouraged to be spoilt, and he is so much older than I 
am. But now I shall always be on my guard, against 
hurting his feelings, and being ungrateful, and the other 
things that girls do when they have too much given them." 

“ Put a good face on it, Grace," whispered Hestia, as 
they re-entered the great hall of the Manor House. Grace, 
seeing Mr. Ebbutt making his way up the hall, ran after 
him, and slipping her arm through his, cried : 

" Is the car ready for us, Richmond ? " 

It was the first time that she had called him by his 
Christian name, except in the marriage service. She had 
called him Maecenas during their engagement. 

“ Allow me to go and see," said Mr. Bernafay. 

“ Oh, thank you," said Grace, still hanging on to her 
husband’s arm, to show him that he was not to leave 
her. 

Mr. Skewen, senior, approaching the right quarter, 
obtained permission for the 2.10 p.m. from Plymouth, 
which only stops at Exeter and Taunton, to stop and 
pick them up at Seacombe Road. 

He was not present at the wedding. Grace had told 
Mr. Ebbutt that she could not tolerate his presence there, 
and that he must find some excuse for preventing it. 


318 


Grace Lorraine 


Mr. Ebbutt’s plain Western mind could see no way of 
doing this except by telling him right out that he would 
be unable to ask him to be at the wedding because his 
presence would be painful to Mrs. Ebbutt. He did not 
say why, nor had he asked why. He supposed that 
Grace would have told him if it had been proper for him 
to know. 

Mr. Skewen received the announcement by observing 
with bland politeness that much as he would like to have 
been present (his exclusion being a serious blow to him 
professionally), he could not think of doing so if his presence 
would be painful to the bride. 

He attributed it to Grace’s having learned that he 
had caused her father’s bankruptcy by urging him to 
continue his investments in the Union Jack Electrical 
Association when Mr. Lorraine had determined to with- 
draw, and was in a terrible fright lest it should lead to 
his losing Mr. Ebbutt as a client. In reality it was the 
connection of himself and his son with the persecution of 
Hestia which had caused his exclusion. 

Mr. Ebbutt wisely booked seats for the saloon of the 
2.10 p.m., instead of having a compartment reserved 
for them. He felt that it would give him more confidence. 

He had his reward. Grace was so charming to him 
that no one could have doubted that they were bride and 
bridegroom, even if Mr. Skewen had not been instructed 
to send them all the picture papers from Plymouth by 
the guard. 

When he asked her what hotel she would go to, she 
said the Savoy. That, too, was part of her cross, for she 
imagined that she would meet more of her old friends 
there than at any hotel in London, if they took their 
meals in the restaurant. 

When they arrived at the hotel, about seven o’clock, 
he engaged a suite overlooking the river, which was a 
regular flat, and made her feel that she had suddenly 
passed from asceticism, if not actual poverty, into a 
haven of rest and luxury. After the past two years it was 
an extraordinary sensation, this, of being a millionaire's 
wife, who could have express trains stopped for her, and 


The Marriage of Grace Lorraine 819 

live in the finest suite in one of London’s most expensive 
hotels, for as long as she liked. 

“ I have ordered dinner in the restaurant ; I thought 
that it would amuse you more.” 

"Oh, Richmond, you are a darling to do so much for 
my pleasure ! ” she said, throwing her arms round his 
neck, and kissing him as any other girl-wife might have 
done — except that she did it from the desire to be natural, 
and not spontaneously. She could not help remembering 
what irony there lay in the fact that the single day in 
which she had been engaged to poor Roger was such a 
valuable training for the part which she was acting. 

There was one thing which encouraged her in the 
situation — after all her fears, she felt no repulsion for 
her husband ; she found it as easy to be affectionate to 
him as to be affectionate to her father. 

When she went in to dress, she found a maid, whom 
her husband had ordered from a Society bureau which 
attended to such matters, until she had found a good maid 
of her own. The old nurse who had maided her at the 
Manor House, and had followed them to the Abbot's 
Lodging, would be more needed by her father than ever 
now that she was taken from him. 

The dresses which Grace had brought with her had 
been modernized by a clever little dressmaker from Ply- 
mouth, who went the round of country houses in South 
Devon, from dresses which she had ordered before their 
downfall, and hardly used. At Mr. Ebbutt's special 
request she had bought no trousseau. He was most 
jealous about her forestalling any pleasure which his 
money could give her. 

“ I have put off buying my trousseau until I came to 
London,” she informed the maid, whose experienced 
eye, as she noticed, had discovered the secret of her 
dresses. " We live on the coast of Devon, nine miles 
from a station, so I could not get my outfit before I was 
married, like a properly brought-up young lady.” 

" Indeed, ma'am ? ” said the maid, who was a nice 
woman. " Your things are so good that you hardly have 
a right to buy new ones in war time.” ^ 


320 


Grace Lorraine 


“ You see, my husband isn't at war — he’s an American.” 

“ Oh, that alters the case, ma'am. You’ll have to be 
getting new things and wearing them before you go out.” 

“ He doesn’t live in America. He lives in the old place 
of my family in South Devon.” 

" Yes, ma’am,” said the maid, not knowing what else 
to say. 

" I want to look my best to-night. Will you do your 
best with me ? ” 

“ I will, ma’am, indeed ! ” said the maid, misconstruing 
her motive. 

When she had finished, she could hardly take her eyes 
off her ; Grace looked so exquisitely lovely. The crowning 
touch was the softness which had so often been lacking in 
Grace’s beauty. To-night she was very soft, for she was 
bashful, and nervously anxious not to be lacking in 
affection. 

Her husband was waiting for her when she came into 
their drawing-room. 

” Do I look all right, Richmond ? ” she asked. 

“You are perfect,” he said, speaking from his heart. 
“ But, Grace dear, still call me Maecenas, will you ? 
That was the name you knew me by when you gave me 
your affections.” 

The expression “ when you gave me your affections ” 
stung her ; she had given them so inadequately. But if 
he wished her to call him Maecenas, or any other name, 
she would do so. 

When she took her seat at the table, chosen unctuously 
by the head waiter for them, and saw the attention which 
she attracted, she felt a considerable sense of well-being. 
She thought that they must be looking at the magnificent 
diamonds which her husband had clasped round her neck 
just before they came down. With the practicality of a 
self-made man he had brought them up in his luggage, 
instead of entrusting them to a fair mark for thieves like 
a lady’s dressing-bag. But if it was, they soon turned 
from her jewels to her beauty. She was radiant with the 
excitement of being in the centre of things again. She 
had determined to make her husband enjoy himself, and 


The Marriage of Grace Lorraine 321 

she found herself being as pleased as he was. For one 
thing, her making herself so charming, and so interested 
in him, gave him back his natural confidence, and with 
that his homely wit, for which the scene at the Savoy 
offered much food. Grace loved his wit. If he was in 
the vein he made her laugh till the tears ran down her 
cheeks. Nothing which he could do for her advanced 
him so much in her good graces. 

That night he was so happy and in such high spirits, 
and so tickled by the people round them — it being August, 
they were not the gilded youth of London, but the gilded 
middle-age of the provinces — that he fairly outshone 
himself. 

After dinner they sat in the lounge for a while, listening 
to the gay music of the orchestra, till her spirits began to 
droop, and her husband thought that she was tired, and 
had better go up to their own suite. 

She was not physically tired, but the gallant young 
officers, fresh back from the trenches, it might be, or 
returning to them on the morrow, gave her the “ blues.” 
They all reminded her of Roger — not necessarily in face 
or figure, but in their high spirits and insouciance. They 
worshipped at the feet of beauty and played round just 
as Roger would have played round, and made her think 
of the might-have-beens. 

But as they were going up in the lift, she remembered 
to put a constraint on herself, and when they got into 
their own suite, she sat down on the sofa beside her 
husband with a glad little sigh. 

It was such a relief to be delivered from the jackals of 
remorse. He did not know whether to interpret the sign 
in his favour or not. But she made him very happy 
by exclaiming — and with perfect sincerity under the 
circumstances : 

“ It's so good to be alone with you again, Maecenas ! ” 


21 


CHAPTER XL VI I 


THE HONEYMOON 

B EFORE she started for the church, Grace wrote two 
cheques, one for all the savings of her income, 
which had been accumulating, and the other for the money 
which she had earned by her pictures. She made both of 
them payable to her father, and enclosed them in a letter 
which she left for him with Rachel Bence. In it she wrote : 

“ Dearest Dad, 

“ It gives me the purest pleasure of my life 
to show my recognition of the generosity with which 
you overwhelmed me, both before and after our 
misfortune. 

“ As you paid off our creditors in full, no one can touch 
it, so you will be able to buy books again. 

“ And now I must say good-bye for a little while, you 
best of fathers, being always 

“ Your affectionate daughter, 

“ Grace Lorraine.” 

Grace and her husband went up to London on a 
Thursday. On the Friday morning Grace set forth on the 
primrose path of buying herself a trousseau with unlimited 
money. She had only to express a wish to have it gratified. 

The first was to hire a car by the week, so that it might 
always be at the door when she required it. She was 
given the most luxurious car on the market, to try for 

322 


The Honeymoon 323 

a week, and told that if she took a special fancy to it, 
she could keep it. 

She spent the first few days in buying, buying, buying 
for her trousseau and her house. She did not buy 
indiscriminately. Her two years of poverty had taken 
away the inclination for that. But if she desired a 
thing, and was satisfied that she was not being swindled, 
she bought it. 

When she was shopping, Mr. Ebbutt began by staying 
in the car, to read the newspapers, unless she invited him 
in or sent for him. He desired not to be a tie on her 
freedom, or a distraction when she wanted to give her 
attention to something else. 

It soon came to, “ Maecenas, I want your advice here,” 
for he was patient and uninterfering, but interested and 
sensible. In a day or two he did not take newspapers 
in the car. 

She did not give up all her time to shopping. She was 
fond of places like Westminster Abbey, and fond of Bond 
Street galleries, and was hoping to interest him in them. 
She found him willing to be interested in anything, and 
delightfully droll when he could not understand it — an 
excellent companion to go about with. 

At the galleries she had the fresh excitement of being 
a constant buyer. He liked encouraging living artists 
when the prices were ticketed, and, as he remarked, they 
had plenty of wall-space at New Taormina. 

London is not a good place in August if you go up 
to see your London friends. But you get more attention 
at the shops, and if you have a good car it is easy to sleep 
and rest outside London. In a week or two they transfered 
themselves from the Savoy to Roger’s suggestion for the 
honeymoon, the Dormy House at Sunningdale, where they 
could have fine air and lovely scenery, and Grace could 
satisfy her love of exercise by taking lessons from the 
professional. 

Her purchases had not been allowed to accumulate 
at the hotel ; they had all been sent straight down to 
Devonshire. She and her husband were not to go back 
until she gave the word. 


21 * 


324 


Grace Lorraine 


Though she had made a heavy sacrifice in marrying 
him, she had determined that he should not know it. 
She meant to honour and obey him if she could not love 
him — in other words, to accede to his wishes charmingly 
in private, and to show people in public that a spoilt-looking 
young beauty could be a devoted wife to a plain and middle- 
aged husband. 

She soon found that she had little necessity for acting, 
that she seldom had the chance of acceding to his wishes, 
since as far as domesticities and recreations were con- 
cerned, he had no wish except to gratify hers, and that 
as for showing her devotion in public, it was done auto- 
matically, because she felt lost without him. If he did 
look awkward while he was following her about like a 
maid, he was never in the way, because he waited for her 
wishes to develop, and his interestedness and his drollery 
made him an excellent companion. 

One day, when they were in their sitting-room, over- 
looking the pines, he thought that he had inflicted himself 
too much on her society ; he excused himself by saying, 
“ Never mind — I am not so faithful as an onion ! And 
you can * set * me, if you want, like an alarm clock. I 
have a special line myself, called the Mosquito, which is 
very pertinaceous with a heavy sleeper. We make the 
cases in our china, and the insect does the alarm with 
its tail — quite regular. But I mustn’t talk shop, or 
you will want me to drop the Ebbutt and call 
myself Mr. Richmond Lorraine. How does that sound, 
Gracie ? ” 

“ Oh, not Gracie, please, Maecenas ! ” A minute after- 
wards she rememberedHier resolves, and said, “I’m sorry 
I spoke like that. You can call me Gracie, or anything 
else you like, dear.’’ 

“ How does Mr. Richmond Lorraine strike you, 
Gracie ? I like calling you Gracie because no one else 
ever did.’’ 

“ That’s just it,’’ she said. “ Roger Wynyard used 
to call me Gracie to tease me.’’ 

“I'm sorry,’’ he said. “ It belongs to your and my 
Roger — the nicest youth That ever stepped.” 


825 


The Honeymoon 

Grace was seized with contagious laughter. “ You can 
call me Grade as much as ever you like, if you promise 
on your word of honour never again to refer to any of 
my friends as a youth , Mr. Richmond Lorraine.” 

“ Oh, I am serious about the Richmond Lorraine, dear. 
I married Grace Lorraine, and Grace Ebbutt don’t sound 
the same article. Besides — sit on my knee a minute, 
Grace — I want to whisper something to you.” 

She obeyed like a child, and put her mouth to his lips 
before she put her ear — knowing, like a child, that it 
would be something nice. 

What he whispered was, “ It don’t sound nice, Via 
Pacis belonging to anyone but a Lorraine,” and he added 
aloud, “ Over here, can you order a noo name, same as 
we can, like a noo soot of clothes ? ” 

“ No, you can’t get them at Harrod’s. You have to 
go to one place in Queen Victoria Street.” 

“ I’ll make a note of that,” he said, pulling out a tiny 
notebook, in a sort of silver matchbox, attached — with 
his keys — by a chain to his right-hand outside brace 
button. In England these resided in his pistol pocket. 
“ What’s that address, again, Grace ? ” 

“ Heralds’ College, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.” She 
did not really know if that was the place where they 
changed your name, but she thought it must be. 

“ What a mighty queer place for a college,” he said. 
" I thought it was built for the overflow of soft-goods 
people from St. Paul’s Churchyard.” 

“ The Times office is there.” 

" Is the Heralds’ College behind the Times ? ” 

“ I fancy it is,” said Grace innocently, not seeing his 
joke until she noticed his expression. 

“ Seriously, what do you think of my idea ? ” 

She was still sitting on his knee, stroking, quite affec- 
tionately, the smooth, shiny grey hair, which always 
looked as if it had just been valeted. 

“ Well, seriously, dear Maecenas, I should love it, 
because it would be so soothing to dad’s dignity for the 
place once more to belong to a Lorraine, and our children 
will be half Lorraines, won’t they, dear ? ” 


326 


Grace Lorraine 


“ All, I hope,” he said. Our children was the most 
delicious music to his ears. 

“ We shouldn’t be obliged to drop the Ebbutt, you 
know. It is quite usual in England to tack on an additional 
surname, like Ebbutt-Lorraine, especially where property 
is concerned.” 

“ Oh, well, that settles it. We’ll go up to town and 
order one to-morrow.” 

He was grateful for the warmth of her gratitude. He 
had never dreamed of classifying her actions into 
” spontaneous ” and “ unspontaneous.” But it thrilled 
him when she showed any desire towards him. 

They stayed away until nearly the end of September. 
Grace Lorraine — she was Grace Ebbutt-Lorraine by now 
— did not wish to return until she was sufficiently fond of 
her husband to create the right impression. At his age 
it was not necessary for their union to appear romantic ; 
she had only to be affectionate and happy. 

The first was easy. Richmond Lorraine had a nature 
which inspired affection when you knew him as a wife 
knows her husband. 

But ghosts throw a shadow upon happiness, and there 
were ghosts at Via Pacis for Grace Lorraine. 


CHAPTER XLVIII 


THE NEW ENOCH ARDEN 

O NE fine October morning in 1916 the only passenger 
in the closed char-a-banc from Seacombe Road 
to Seacombe and Via Pacis was an officer in uniform. 

He had no notion that there was a motor vehicle running 
to Seacombe, but this was not surprising, because it had 
not been running more than a year. The driver and the 
conductor had not much to say about it because they had 
come down from Coventry with the vehicle. 

There was no one about when it stopped in the village, 
except the bookstall boy waiting for the morning papers. 
Railway Bookstalls, Limited, were an even later institution 
than the char-a-banc. There were not many men in the 
village. The contractor's men were all middle-aged Italians, 
and they lived up the inlet, near his yard. No man 'of.' the 
fighting age was allowed to rent a house in the village, 
nor any family which included a man of the fighting age 
who had not gone to the war. 

The officer got out here. He paid the conductor, and 
told him to inquire if his luggage had arrived when he 
went to meet the evening train ; it had been left behind 
at Paddington. ^ 

He then walked off in the direction of Via Pacis, but 
was just going to turn in at the Rectory gate when he 
caught sight of New Taormina, which t began, close to 
where he was standing, on the site of the orchard where 
Mr. Ebbutt’s cows used to graze. 

He had heard nothing about it ; nor had he ever been 

327 


328 


Grace Lorraine 


to Taormina. He thought that he must have taken 
leave of his senses again. He could not resist going up 
to have a look at it, though he had eaten no breakfast 
yet, having left London by the newspaper train in the 
morning. He lighted a cigarette before he started, and 
strolled along with an air of amused tolerance until he 
came to the first house — an odd-looking place, he thought 
it, surrounded by a very high wall, which had the pecu- 
liarity of containing two windows. He went up to one 
window and looked through it. 

It was Hestia Myrtle’s garden, and she was sitting in 
it, very lovely, in black, which showed up her wonderful 
colouring, and with her face full of expectancy, as it 
always was at post-time nowadays, when any post might 
bring her a whole sheaf of flattering press-notices about 
her music — as well as the news for which she waited. 
Morning after morning had she waited — ever since he had 
been reported “ missing.” The very word “ missing ” 
seemed to bring his return nearer. 

Suddenly the expectancy in her face broke into exalta- 
tion, for someone had come in at the gate and was advancing 
to meet her across the grass. 

“ Hallo, old girl ! ” he said. “ Just got back.” It 
was the officer who had come from Seacombe Road. 

“ Oh, Roger, is that the way you come back from 
the grave ? How like you, you old darling ! ” she cried, 
and flew to him and flung her arms round him, and hung 
on his neck, and kissed him until she had no breath left. 

“ I left the grave some time ago,” he said. “ I made 
a long stop, I believe, at a place whose name I can never 
quite manage. The popes lived there for some time, but 
gave it up after three or four had had a try — I expect for 
the same reason.” 

“ Oh, Roger, it is you ! Nobody else could talk such 
delicious rubbish at such a moment ! Have you seen 
your mother ? ” 

“ No, I had to come and see what this funny show was. 
What do you call it ? ” 

“It is all in Via Pacis, I believe ; but everybody calls 
it the New Taormina.” 


The New Enoch Arden 


329 


“ Oh, my hat ! Did Lorraine do this ? ** 

Hestia forgot that he could not have heard about 
Mr. Ebbutt having changed his name, and said, “ Yes/* 
and added, “ It was Grace’s doing a good deal, I think.” 

“ Grace Lorraine ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How is she ? ” 

“ Exceedingly flourishing.” 

“ Good old Grace ! ” 

She could not understand his manner. As far as he 
knew, he must still be engaged to Grace, but he said 
nothing further, except, “ Well, I call it damned funny, 
putting up a show like this here ! What’s poor old Sea- 
combe done to deserve it ? ” 

“ Roger,” she said, releasing him — she had been hanging 
on to him all this time in her joy at seeing him again — 
“ wait here for me while I get ready, and I’ll go down to 
the Rectory with you. You must let me go in and break 
the news, or the shock to your mother might be serious.” 

“ Right-ho ! Is that your breakfast I see in the ground- 
floor back ? ” 

“ The remains of it.” 

“ The remains of it are good enough for me. I see 
bread and butter and marmalade, and I suppose that 
there's something in the milk-jug, if not in the tea-pot ? 
I have had nothing to eat or drink since I left the 
Tommy’s Rest at Paddington, at something after five in the 
morning.” 

“Go in and ring the bell and order up some fresh tea 
and the cold ham. It will give me a few minutes more.” 

“ Clever woman ! ” 

Hestia went up to her room and routed out the brightest- 
coloured frock, the brightest-coloured hat, and the 
brightest-coloured sunshade which would in any way go 
together, and made herself look as ravishing as she could 
in them. Then she went down to Roger. 

“ Hallo ! ” he asked. “ Changed places with the rain- 
bow ? Anyway, I like these football colours better than 
the All-blacks’ .” 

This time he put his arm round her and took a long 


330 


Grace Lorraine 


toll of her lips. Then he gave a big sigh, and said, “ It’s 
good to be back with you, little Hestia.” 

“ Then why did you sigh, Roger ? ” 

“For want of breath, stupid ! ” 

“ Oh, that’s all right.” 

“ Is it ‘ eyes front — quick march ’ ? ” 

“ If you refer to starting for the Rectory — yes.” 

When they got there, Hestia stopped by the great yew 
tree which stood outside the Rectory gate, at the end of 
the path across the churchyard. 

“ Stand behind that, Roger, till I call you,” she said. 
She rang the bell. “ Is her ladyship in ? ” 

“Yes, miss,” said the parlourmaid, taking her to the 
dining-room, where Lady Cynthia, still in mourning, was 
picking up and folding the papers which the Rector, 
man-like, had dropped on the floor as soon as he had 
skimmed the cream of the war-telegrams. 

“ How do you do, Hestia ? Why this sudden breaking 
out into colours ? ” 

“ Can’t you guess, Lady Cynthia ? ” 

The mother laughed, with a shaking upper lip and 
tears in her eyes. 

“ I know,” she said. “ It must be Roger come back ! 
If it isn’t, it would have been kinder to kill me.” 

“ But it is ! It is ! ” 

The ordinarily self-possessed Lady Cynthia rushed 
to the foot of the stairs, and called up wildly, “ Father ! 
Father ! Roger’s back ! He’s safe ! He’s alive ! ” 

The Rector — three-score and ten though he was — 
flew down the stairs so quickly that he seemed to shoot 
down the banisters. 

“ Where is he ?” he cried. “ Where is he ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said his mother. “ Where is he, 
Hestia ? ” 

“ In the churchyard, behind the big yew.” 

Hestia was running forward to call Roger, when the 
Rector put two fingers in his mouth, and gave the ear- 
piercing whistle which he had been at such pains to teach 
the child Roger. 

Roger dashed into the garden and into his mother’s 


The New Enoch Arden 331 

arms. And when at length she could spare him, his 
grandfather seized his hand and began to wring it. 

Suddenly he stopped and said, “ What is this, Roger ? ” 

“ One of the celebrated Carne hands, grandfather/’ 

“ Where’s your own, Roger ? ” 

“ In lines which used to be German and now are ours.” 

“ Roger, I didn’t notice that you had a false arm — I 
mean hand,” cried Hestia. 

“ Oh, Roger boy, where have you been all this time ? ” 
asked his mother. 

“ I don’t quite know, mother,” he answered, coming 
back to put his arm round her. 

She gave Hestia a significant smile, but Hestia was too 
happy to be easily disconcerted. 

“Well, where have you sprung from now ? ” 

“ Rouen. I had to go there for my kit, which I duly 
lost again at Paddington.” 

“ Oh, Roger, how like you ! But before that where 
were you ? ” 

“ A weenion.” He put such emphasis on the een and 
the on that no Frenchman would have recognized the 
Papal city of Avignon ; but it helped his mother and his 
grandfather. 

“ What on earth have you been doing there ? ” 

“ You may well ask. I was at the institute which 
they have started in the Palace of the Popes for people 
who have lost their memories by battle-shock.” 

“ Had you ? ” 

“ I suppose so, but, of course, you never know. The 
only things I can remember are that we had stormed a 
position from the Germans which we could not hold, 
because their artillery had the range of it, and pumped 
shrapnel into us — a bit of it cut my right arm off just 
above the wrist. A plucky R.A.M.C. man who had 
stayed with us bound it up, and I started to retreat with 
the rest, but dropped insensible — from loss of blood, I 
suppose. When I came to I was lying with my forehead 
on my wrist-watch — the stem-winder was digging into 
it a bit. I was trying to shift into an easier position, 
when a wounded man near said in a low voice, ‘ Keep 


332 Grace Lorraine 

still, sir — the German snipers are picking off everyone 
who moves/ 

“ I lay as still as I could. Day had not dawned very 
long, and there was another fifteen hours of daylight 
before it would be dark enough for us to shift. So I lay 
there with that little stem-winder grinding through my 
forehead to my brain — that’s what it felt like. Over and 
over again I thought of jumping up and calling on the 
snipers to finish me off, the agony of lying as I lay was so 
awful. But I determined to stick it for your sakes, though 
I had little hope of ever seeing Seacombe again. 

“ At last night came, and I staggered up and made my 
way as best I could in the darkness to the point from which 
we had started out in the morning. Their star shells helped 
me a bit — I had to crawl most of the way. 

“ When I got there I found no trace of the Regiment. So 
I crawled on away from the German lines till I lost con- 
sciousness again. After that I can’t remember anything 
till I found myself in a French kit in a small room in an 
enormous place, that seemed to have been built about the 
time of the Creation. A nurse who spoke English told me 
that I had been months and months in the place, quite 
well to all appearances, but suffering from a complete loss 
of memory. 

However, one day I saw, hanging from this nurse’s 
oxydized steel watch-chain, a long-bodied dog made of the 
same stuff. 

“ ‘ What is that ? ’ I asked her, and she answered, ‘ It is 
the crest of Lorraine.’ I said, ‘ I know some people called 
Lorraine, and they had that dog carved and painted and 
in stained-glass windows — that was at Seacombe in Devon- 
shire, where I live.’ 

“ The nurses always have tablets with them to write 
down the smallest clue to a patient who can't identify 
himself, and she wrote this down. She spelt Seacombe 
‘ S-i-k-u-m,’ and Devonshire all anyhow, but I made out 
what she meant when she showed it to me, and last of all I 
remembered who I was, and they sent me up to the British 
base at Rouen, where they had my kit, carefully stored 
away for me, because I had only been reported missing, and 


333 


The New Enoch Arden 

they promised that they would communicate with you 
at once, and gave me five pounds of the pay which had 
been accumulating for me, and shipped me back to London, 
and I came straight on home/’ 

“ But, Roger, there are some points I should like you to 
clear up,” said the Rector. “ First I want to know, was 
there nothing about you by which they ought to have 
been able to identify you ? ” 

“ Apparently not.” 

“ What would an officer ordinarily have about his person 
which would identify him ? ” 

“ Well, first of all there is his identification disc ; second, 
there are the marks on his underwear, such as shirts or 
pocket-handkerchiefs ; and third, any letters or papers 
with his name on them which he may have in his haversack ; 
and lastly, the badges on his cap and his tunic would show 
what Regiment he belonged to.” 

“ Well, how do you account for it that you had none of 
these marks about you ? ” 

“ Well, as to the old disc, grandfather, I had taken it off 
my neck and put it on the curb bracelet that Grace Lorraine 
gave me on that day, which I always wore on my right 
wrist. Grace . . . how is Grace, the girl I am going to 
marry ? . . . There, you see the tricks my memory plays 
me ! I'm going to marry her, and I’d forgotten it till this 
minute ! ” 

Lady Cynthia answered him promptly. “ Grace Lorraine 
is all right,” she said. 

“ And still living at Via Pacis ? ” 

‘‘Yes, still living at Via Pacis.” 

“ Well, that’s great,” he said. “ I had an awful feeling 
at that moment that something had happened to her. I 
always wore the disc on that bracelet,” he continued, “ and 
lost it with my right hand. So they hadn't my disc to go on.” 
“ Well, what about the marks on your underclothing ? ” 
“ They, unfortunately, did not show my name, as they 
were just marked with my initials, R.W., which would 
not tell anybody enough.” 

“ And what about the haversack ? ” 

“ I lost that when I was crawling after the Regiment in 


334 


Grace Lorraine 


the dark. It was not among the articles reported by the 
French as being in my possession when they found me, 
nor was my cap, and the badges on the collar of my tunic 
had been removed by relic-hunters. So there was simply 
nothing to identify me by, and they could do nothing but 
keep me there till I recovered my memory.” 

“ And have you quite recovered it now ? ” 

“No, not completely. When I test myself to see if 
my memory is getting better, I can remember some things 
perfectly well, and more of them every day, but there 
are gaps everywhere, just as if the Censor had got into my 
mind and blac.kleaded every other sentence. For instance, 
Grace Lorraine, whom I’m going to marry to-day — I’ve 
remembered and forgotten her twice since I’ve been talking 
to you. But I can’t forget her when I’m married 
to her, so I’ll go and fix it up right away. Shall I find her 
at the Abbot’s Lodging ? ” 

“No, at the Manor House. I’ll go up with you if you 
are going,” said his mother, breathing inwardly an anxious 
prayer to the Almighty that she might be granted tact at 
the supreme moment. 

She did not telephone to Grace. In spite of the prayer 
which she had just breathed, she felt that it was Fate, not 
Providence, which assumes the direction of events at a 
crisis. 

Hestia, the other party to this strange imbroglio, was 
so happy that she could have kissed the Rector. She went 
home a few minutes after their departure. She could 
await events. How fond of her Roger still was she had 
seen, and that was enough. 

Lady Cynthia’s heart was in her mouth. But Roger 
was the same cheery schoolboy that he always had been, 
playing tricks with the finger-joints of his wooden hand to 
try and make her laugh. 

They went into the Manor House through the gardens, 
not up the avenue. Half-way across they saw Grace, 
pointing and giving directions, and her husband moving 
large pieces of water-worn limestone into position on a 
rockery which she was designing. 

“ She’s getting on, isn’t she ? ” said Roger, “ making 


The New Enoch Arden 335 

old Ebbutt work like a navvy in carrying out her ideas 
in his garden ! ” 

“ He isn’t Mr. Ebbutt now, Roger — he’s Mr. Lorraine,” 
said his mother, trying to afford him a clue. 

“ Well, I’m blest ! Has he bought up their name, too ? 
How did he manage that ? ” 

“ Just in the way you would expect.” 

” I don’t follow.” 

“ You’re dead, you know — you’ve even got a monument 
in the church.” 

" I must see that before they take it down,” he said. 
“ But what’s it got to do with old Ebbutt calling himself 
Lorraine ? ” 

Lady Cynthia did not answer. The stones were now 
arranged to Grace’s satisfaction, and she was dusting Mr. 
Lorraine’s clothes as if he had been her child, ending up 
with a friendly pat on the shoulder, and a smile which was 
as good as a caress. 

By this time Roger and his mother were near enough to 
hear what the Lorraines were saying, but the Lorraines 
were too absorbed to have noticed them. Grace was 
saying, “ You need not have done it yourself, dear. I 
meant you to tell the gardener where the mistake was — 
honestly.” 

“ Ebbutt’s* commonsense china ’ wouldn’t have been all 
over Amer-ricky and Canady now, if I hadn’t put things 
right myself, whenever I saw them wrong.” 

" Oh, well . . .” 

“ Have you guessed yet, Roger ? ” asked his mother. 

Roger smiled. “ She thought I’d ‘ gone west,’ and has 
taken on old Ebbutt — I beg his pardon, Lorraine ? 
Lorraine in honour of the event, I suppose ? ” 

He spoke with no more concern than if he had come up 
late for a dance, and saw the partner who had promised 
him whirling round the room with someone else. 

“ Yes, she’s married Mr. Lorraine.” 

“ She can’t accuse him of never having done anything 
to earn his living,” said Roger. “ And as that was my only 
fault, she ought to be happy.” 

“ Don’t you think she is happy ? Just look at her.” 


336 


Grace Lorraine 


" Bouncing." 

His mother wondered if Roger was talking flippantly 
to disguise the intensity of his feelings, or because of a 
lapse in his memory, which made him blind -to his loss. 
For whatever effect she had expected the announcement 
of Grace's marriage to have on him, she certainly had not 
expected it to plunge him into rather boisterous high spirits. 

At that moment Grace saw him, and, crying " There’s 
Roger ! " flew to him, with both hands extended. She 
almost wept at first when she felt the wooden hand of the 
great cricketer — and then felt a pulse of rejoicing that it 
meant his going into danger no more. 

" Roger," said her husband, "I’m as glad to see you 
back as I should be to see myself back from what’s going 
on over there. And that’s saying a very great deal, 
because I was born with a homely disposition. You know 
that I’ve married your fiancy, I suppose ? I shouldn’t 
have done it if I had thought there had been a dog’s chance 
of your coming back — indeed I shouldn’t, my boy ; and if 
we was in Oregon, I’d va-cate right now, but it wouldn’t 
be no use here, where marriages are spilt milk. Not but 
what I’m gladder than anything in all my life that you have 
these matrimonial restrictions, because I’d rather give up 
everything I’ve got than Gracie. But fair’s fair, and she 
said she’d have to give me up if you came back before we 
was married.” 

"You dear old Maecenas ! ’’ said Grace, clasping her 
hands impulsively round one of his arms, "it’s no good your 
talking of giving me up, because I shouldn’t allow you to." 

As she said this, she looked him in- the eyes, and he saw 
that she was sincere, and a deep thankfulness settled upon 
his spirit. 

Grace was not less thankful that Roger had returned, 
for though there was no man whom she would so soon have 
had for a husband as her own, now, she could not forget 
the years of buoyant happiness which she had spent with 
Roger, her more than brother. 

Then she turned to his mother, and said, " Will you and 
Roger and your father-in-law kill the fatted calf here 
to-night, or must you have the boy all to yourselves ? " 


The New Enoch Arden 


337 


“I’d rather we ate our dinner with you, Grace. If there 
were only three of us the feeling might run too deep.” 

“ How's Uncle Henry, Grace ? ” asked Roger. 

“ I’m afraid that he’s happier without me. It allows 
him to take his duties as Abbot — I mean, Master — more 
seriously.” 

“ Good old Uncle Henry ! ” said Roger. “ I must go 
and rout him out of it.” 

“ I think we had better telephone to him,” said Grace. 
“ Shocks aren’t very good for people of his tempera- 
ment.” 

While her husband went to telephone, Grace said, “ I 
hope that you've been to see Hestia, Roger ? ” 

“ Been to see Hestia ? ” He told her how he had seen 
Hestia, and she saw it all so clearly that she almost laughed 
and wept. The gaps in his memory had not wiped out the 
remembrance of that strange three-cornered duel with 
Hestia and Grace, which had taken place in those last days 
before the war took him, and he wondered if Grace had 
ever guessed why the delay occurred which made her 
Richmond Lorraine’s wife instead of his. There was 
only one way, he told himself, in which discovery could 
have happened — by Hestia’s being seized with contrition 
and abasing herself before Grace. If she had done it, Grace 
must have forgiven her, or she would not have asked 
so solicitously, “ Have you been to see Hestia, Roger ? ” 

He decided that she could not know Hestia's story and 
what a villain he had been. Grace could not forgive a thing 
like that. 

As Roger was going back with his mother to lunch, he 
saw Hestia sitting at her window. He felt that she was 
watching for his return, and called out to her gaily, “ Will 
you give me tea in your garden, Hestia ? ” 

“You can have tea here,” she called back, “ but not in 
the garden, for tramps sometimes look through that 
window, and come in uninvited.” 

His mother thought that Roger had fetched Hestia to 
break the good news to her gently, though she never would 
have believed it of Roger, like so many other things, before 
the war. But she had her boy to herself for the next three 

22 


338 Grace Lorraine 

or four hours, and had never known him so playful and 
wholly adorable. 

Roger felt that Hestia must have tea at four o’clock, 
though when that time came he could not make up his mind 
to start. 

When he got there at a few minutes before five, he 
found that the confectioners of New Taormina had been 
ransacked for his favourite delicacies, and Hestia was 
dressed to receive a tea-party, though the tea-party was 
only of one. 

“ The water is hot,” said Hestia, as she struck a match 
and lighted the spirit-lamp under the kettle. “ It will 
only take a few minutes to boil.” 

“ Are you going to boil it yourself, because you were the 
Goddess of Fire in Ancient Greece, Hestia ? ” This was 
one of the odd freaks of Roger’s memory. 

“No, I boil it myself because servants choose such 
awkward moments for bringing in tea.” 

“ Then haven’t they anything to bring in ? ” 

She shook her head. 

Roger went to the tea-table and blew out the lamp. 

“I’ve something to say to you, Hestia, and it oppresses 
me. I’d like to get it over.” 

Hestia, who had a very graceful way of composing herself 
on a couch, composed herself, and waited for him to begin, 
eyeing him as his mother might have eyed this long-lost son. 

“ Hestia,” he began, “ can you marry a cad ? ” 

“ Just as easily as I can marry anyone else,” she replied, 
with a touch of her old mischief — “ considering that I 
have a husband already.” 

“ I mean, if you had divorced him, or he had been killed 
in the war, or anything, could you marry a cad ? ” 

“ I should have to divorce Mr. Cadbury,” she said. “ I 
can’t imagine him risking his precious carcase in the war. 
A cad would seem like a king after him.” 

“I’m thinking of one particular cad,” he said. “ A 
cad who made a woman his . . .” he hesitated — “ his 
victim, because another woman whom he was dying to 
marry had refused his proposal, and when the other woman 
changed her mind and said that she would marry him after 


The New Enoch Arden 339 

all, he was so carried away that he let the woman whom he 
had betrayed release him because she was so generous. 

" I have never before in all my life,” he continued, 
" known Roger Wynyard such a cad. I never knew that 
he could be such a cad.” 

“ Being a cad is very often neither more nor less than 
yielding to the dictates of human nature,” said Hestia. 

“ That’s all very fine, but ever since I first went to school 
I have been professing and trying to practise a code which 
aims at making it impossible to do a dirty action.” 

“We are all human, Roger.” 

“ I don’t call it human to behave like a cad the very first 
time that your honour is put to the test.” 

“ Though the victim was left with a horribly big and 
aching void in her heart, she even loved your weakness. 
She had feared that you were too lofty for her Aucassin- 
and-Nicolette world.” 

“ I never heard of those people,” said Roger simply. 
“ But while I was killing time in the trenches — we always 
had to be waiting for the enemy — I used to think about it, 
and I used to say to myself, ‘ Roger Wynyard, you’re going 
to marry the woman you have always loved, and she is 
one of the most beautiful women in the County, but there 
will always be a shadow across your marriage, because 
another woman has a greater claim.’ ” 

“No, she hadn’t,” said Hestia. “ She did not consider 
that she had any claim at all. To have been as your wife 
for a single day was the greatest joy of her life. And she 
could not marry you when you asked her, because she was 
married already, but married to one whose behaviour had 
given her the right to seek happiness with another.” 

“ Hestia, I can tell you truly that I have worried so 
over my behaviour that when I learned that Grace, who 
was the desire of my life, had freed me from my engage- 
ment by marrying another, I could hardly conceal my 
exultation from the Mater. I felt as if my spurs had 
been restored to me, or whatever they do to knights who 
have been struck off the roll.” 

“ I think that’s solicitors, not knights. You want me 
to help you out, you ridiculous and sublime old dear. 

22 * 


340 


Grace Lorraine 


Only promise to be mine for ever — I don’t care whether 
you wait till I can get a divorce and marry you, or become 
mine without all that fuss — and I’ll forgive you every- 
thing, if there is anything at all to forgive.” 

“You must get a divorce and marry me,” answered 
Roger, very earnestly. “ A man who has once betrayed 
his honour cannot be trusted. You must put it out of 
his power to betray his honour again.” 

“ That’s all very fine,” said Hestia, “ but suppose 
Mr. Cadbury doesn’t give me a chance ? ” 


CHAPTER XLIX 

WHAT GRACE TOLD HER HUSBAND 

W HEN Roger went back with his mother to lunch, 
Grace felt that there was a little clearing-up to 

be done. 

First she went and found her husband. “ Maecenas, 
I hope that you did not mind my kissing Roger ? ” 

“ Kiss him whenever you like,” he said. “ You have 
kissed him, I suppose, ever since you can remember ? ” 
She gave a little smile. “ Except during our very brief 
engagement, I have only kissed him as a sister, and that 
not very often. I hated being kissed by men in any 
other way. I only kissed him as a sister this morning. 
I don’t suppose that I shall ever want to do it again.” 

Mr. Richmond Lorraine had a sense of humour ; he 
was also practical. “ In case of accidents,” he said, “ I 
think you had better say good-night to him at the front 
door this evening, and take the opportunity of kissing 
him before me and in the presence of Collins.* That 
will put the matter on a perfectly regular footing.” 

He was surprised at the fervour with which she suddenly 
kissed him. “ As you have shown your trust in me, I 
will show my trust in you,” she said. “ I did not love 
you when I married you. I dreaded marrying you. It 
was the most terrible ordeal which I ever went through. 
But you said that you were willing to marry me even if 
I could not love you, in the hope that love might come 
after marriage. So I made myself marry you.” 

* Mr. Lorraine’s old butler was still in their service* 

341 


342 


Grace Lorraine 


“ Why ? ” asked Richmond Lorraine, in his plain way. 

An abyss seemed to have opened up at Grace’s feet. 
How could she tell him the reason ? 

“ I think I know the reason,” he said, trying to help 
her out. “You had given your promise to Roger, and 
though you believed that all hope was past, you wanted 
to consecrate yourself to him all your life, but in your 
great generosity you vouchsafed to marry me because 
the desire of my life was to marry you, even without 
your heart.” 

“No, that was not the reason at all, my beloved 
husband.” 

He bent forward eagerly ; the feeling with which she had 
uttered these words filled him with almost fierce happiness. 

“ What was it, then ? ” 

“ I had a presentiment, which amounted to a certainty, 
that Roger was alive, and I wanted to make it impossible 
for me to marry him, if he was. I hoped with all my 
might that I should be able to learn to love you.” 

He looked at her with such unfathomable affection 
that she added quickly, “ And I am finding it — oh, so 
easy, Maecenas l ” 

“ I don’t think I quite see why you did it, yet.” 

“ No, I haven’t told you.” How on earth was she to 
tell him without betraying Hestia ? Then an inspiration 
came to her. “ I wanted him to marry Hestia, because 
I found out that she had loved him so much better than 
I had. Though I did not want to give him up a bit, I 
felt that I could not deprive her.” 

“ How noble of you, Grace ! ” he exclaimed ecstatically. 

“ Yes, I know that I behaved nobly,” she said, with 
a naivete which might have taxed the gravity of anyone 
less plain than her husband. “ But it’s the only action 
above mediocrity that I have ever performed in my life.” 

******* 

Then she went to speak to Hestia on the telephone. 
She was glad that Hestia could not scrutinize her face 
while she was talking. 

“ I have seen Roger,” she said. “ He is just his dear 


What Grace told her Husband 343 


old self. I don’t think I ever had such a happiness in my 
life as seeing him back from the dead. But I am glad 
that I did not marry him, Hestia.” 

“ Are you really, Grace ? Do tell me why ! ” 

“ You know quite well already my great reason. It 
has been a blessing in disguise, I think, because I believe 
that I am going to be happier in the end with my husband 
than I could have been with Roger.” 

“ Oh, Grace, I am glad ! ” 

“ But I did not ring you up to give you a lecture on 
my private feelings. I rang you up to tell you that 
Roger seems to take my marriage quite as a matter of 
course, so that there is nothing to stand in the way of 
your marrying him, if ... I feel quite sure that he will ask 
you. I want you to come to the dinner which we are 
giving to-night to the prodigal son. He is your prodigal 
son, and shortly, I hope, about to become your un-prodigal 
husband. We will ask just the dozen, so that no accident 
may reduce us to thirteen — just yourself, ourselves, my 
father, the Wynyards, Lord Buckland — Lady Cynthia’s 
brother — Brooke Sylvester, Rufus How, and two of the 
three who helped to save our lives — Mr. Bernafay and 
the little doctor. Will you come, dear ? ” 

“ Will I come ? ” echoed Hestia, with happy irony. 


CHAPTER L 

THE LAST CHAPTER OF VIA PACIS 

T HE reader may wish to know how the curtain fell 
on the chief actors. 

Grace’s father had suffered a fresh shock. The public 
trustee had informed him that there was a prospect of 
a very handsome dividend on the Union Jack Electrical 
Association shares, which had been taken over by the 
Government on account of the German connection, the 
British Electrical manufactories which Mr. Oppidan had 
closed down having been reopened when imports from 
Germany ceased. Such of the shareholders as could 
prove themselves bona-fide British were to receive their 
dividends. Among them was the naturalized Mr. Oppidan, 
who, fortunately for the shareholders’ pockets, was still 
in virtual, if not nominal, control of the Association. 

Henry Lorraine was depressed by the news. Having 
known the sweets of monastic life, the lying down and rising 
up with no thoughts of the morrow, he desired no other. 
The only way in which they could persuade him to accept 
his dividends was by inoculating him with the design of 
settling on his son-in-law’s estate a colony of men broken 
in the war, to supply the markets of the rising community, 
and making provisions worthy of the founder of Via 
Pacis for their comfort and amusement, not forgetting 
that man is a gregarious animal. And there were those 
sums, which he had given to improvements at the 
Fellowship, which had been spent but never paid when 
the crash came. When he thought of them he shed tears 
of pride. 


344 


The Last Chapter of Via Pacis 345 

Hestia Myrtle had settled herself in her old rooms at 
Fleurdelys House when Roger’s month of leave was up, 
and he took up his duties as instructor in war con- 
ditions to the new battalion of East Surreys which was 
forming at the Kingsburgh Park Camp. She told herself 
that she had to be near him because he felt so low at not 
being allowed to return to the front. 

“ Would you rather be fighting, Roger ? ” she asked, 
trying to keep the reproach out of her voice like a good 
Englishwoman. 

“ I don’t want to lose my life more than anyone else,” 
he said. “ I never popped my head over the parapet 
to oblige snipers, but I hate not being able to fight until 
the war is over, or I am killed. I feel as if I wasn’t doing 
my bit.” 

“ Well, if you’re going to teach trenching and bomb- 
throwing to the new battalion of your Regiment,” Hestia 
replied, “ you’ll be doing your bit still.” 

“Yes, Hestia, but it isn’t like risking your life for 
your country.” 

“ Men are such contrary things. You’ve just said 
that you did not want to lose your life more than any- 
one else does, yet you’re complaining because you can’t 
go back and risk it ! ” 

“ There isn’t anything contrary about it. You hope 
to come safe through, but you just don’t feel that you 
are doing all you can for your country unless you are 
risking your life. However, the War Office has decided 
that no one who cannot put up a first-class fight is to go 
into the trenches, so there’s nothing more for it but to do 
as much as they’ll let you do.” 

Hestia spent the long hours, which she had to spend 
alone, in unremitting work. 

People — except her agent, who was delighted with 
the amount of production which he could get out of her, 
and Mr. Ace, for whom she had nearly finished her new 
piece, “ The Girl I Left Behind Me ” — were thoroughly 
cross with Hestia. They thought that she had degener- 
ated into a money-making machine. The absence of a 
woman as lovely and amusing as Hestia, who can also be 


346 


Grace Lorraine 


paraded as a lion, and has the means to entertain and be 
entertained and go everywhere, is a most serious loss to 
Bohemian society. 

Once in a way she would make her appearance at a 
reception, but always attended by that officer from the 
Kingsburgh camp, who, cordial as he was, kept her out 
of the whirl of personalities and reciprocal hospitalities. 

A few people went down to see her at Kingsburgh. 
They found her almost invariably alone, and almost 
invariably working. For Roger was too busy to come 
and see her except in the evenings, and on Saturday 
afternoons and Sundays. But on Saturdays and Sundays 
they had other fish to fry, while in the evenings only 
those who had cars came, and they did not arrive until 
after he had left. 

He always left early. Hestia was so lovely and lovable 
that he could not trust himself to stay late. He had, 
when she had most unwillingly yielded to his paying a 
certain part of her housekeeping expenses, arranged to 
dine with her every night, coming in from the camp as 
early as he could get away before dinner, though he 
seldom reached her before six o’clock. 

To be able to look forward to Hestia’s society and 
these hours of rest at the end of the day’s work, made 
life couleur-de-rose for him,' for it let him throw his whole 
energies into doing his bit ‘all day, with romance to crown 
the conclusion of his labours. 

The affections, which a nice-minded woman is willing 
to bestow upon the man to whom she is engaged, were all 
that he craved. He 'kept ' an iron hand on himself in the 
accepting of them. 

It was different for Hestia. In the long hours that 
she had without him there was work to be done, it was 
true, and she often did it with feverish energy, in her 
anxiety to make money for their future home. But 
composition, musical as well as literary, is introspective 
work, and into such work other thoughts will creep 
besides those of creation. 

Her days were very long. From one o’clock onwards 
she never liked to be away from home, lest Roger should 


The Last Chapter of Via Pads 347 

come-in, as once in a blue moon he did, though he begged 
her never to wait-in for him. And though he left her 
before ten at night, force of habit prevented her going 
to bed before one. Why could he not spend those 
precious hours with her ? That was what she asked 
herself every night when she read the confession which 
he wrote to her after that walk. It was well that she 
knew it by heart, for she had washed it out with tears. 
And why, oh, why, were they to waste the best years of 
their lives, waiting for a comparatively young man to be 
parted from her by death ? 

In Bohemia no one would think the worse of her if 
she was satisfied with a marriage before God instead of 
a marriage before man. And Grace Lorraine had said 
as much for her part. But what would Roger’s grand- 
father, as a clergyman, have to say to it ? What would 
Roger’s mother, broad-minded as she was, have to say 
to her only child contracting a union of this sort, instead 
of the kind of marriage for which she had hoped ? 

After all, it came back to the point, what would Roger 
say ? For if Roger said yes, what would she care 
if all the earth and heaven above and hell below said 
nay ? 

“ Roger dear,” she said to him that night, when she 
had played him and herself into a state of sympathy and 
exaltation, “ what would your mother and your grand- 
father say if we did not wait for my divorce ? ” 

“ We shall never know, Hestia, because I will never 
wrong you again as I did that night.” 

" Why ? ” 

“ Because it was a backsliding from the principles I’ve 
been trying to live up to ever since I was a boy. Before 
it had been done twenty-four hours I was plunging deeper 
and deeper into lies and deceit— not to save my own 
skin— that I have never done— but to save the feelings 
of the women, whom I had wronged, from being hurt, and 
to reconcile claims that were irreconcilable.” 

It was the Octopus over again. 

“ It haunted me all the time I was in France. I have 
never been the same man since, until Grace cut the mill- 


348 


Grace Lorraine 


stone from my neck by marrying Ebbutt, and leaving me 
free to marry you without my having done anything 
unhandsome to her.” 

“ But you can’t marry me, Roger, and may never be 
able to : that’s the rub.” 

“ Marriage isn’t only for the purposes described in the 
prayer-book with such an absence of reserve. Grace 
was quite right. Marriage is really to give us the com- 
panionship which we shall enjoy in our old age. And as 
I shall never feel dull with you, Hestia, and don’t believe 
that you will ever feel dull with me, we can go on enjoying 
being pals, whether we can actually share a name and a 
home, or not. That’s good enough for me.” 

“ It’s not good enough for me, Roger, and it’s not 
good enough for England. I don’t pretend that I am satis- 
fied, but even if I was, we are not doing our duty to 
England. During the war hundreds of thousands will be 
killed, while owing to the absence of husbands, poverty, 
and all sorts of things, the birth-rate is much lower than 
usual. Do you think that two extra-healthy people like 
you and I, who are well able to support children, have a 
right to stand by ? You are a man over six feet high, the 
pride of your school and your University for the activity 
and skill and courage which made you so great in sports. 
You have shown your fearlessness in battle ; you have been 
showing the strength of your moral character this very 
minute. I am a well-formed and brainy woman, who has 
never known a day’s illness. I cannot, as it is, have 
children, because I am separated from my husband, and 
he is not fit to be the father of an Englishman. You 
cannot lead me to the altar because I have this husband.” 

“ I suppose that conscience would say that I ought to 
marry some woman who is free, and become the father of 
children. But I could not do it. I could not marry any 
other woman without wronging you in my own eyes.” 

“ Conscience is one thing, Roger. It is like your code, 
but it does not go so far. But there is another thing with 
which we must not mix it up, and that is convention.” 

“ I don’t think I know clearly what convention 
means.” 


The Last Chapter of Via Pacis 349 

" Convention is the spirit of custom. But customs 
are not the inventions of people who see clearly ; they are 
not inventions at all : they are the habits formed by the 
blind following the blind.” 

“Yes, I suppose they are.” 

“ Take my case. The blind following the blind have 
failed to see that if a healthy young woman is married to a 
man who is unfit to be the husband of a decent woman, 
and cannot live with him, there is no earthly reason why 
that woman should be condemned to widowhood as long as 
that man lives, and the nation be deprived of the services 
of an excellent mother.” 

" Yes,” he said, but rather doubtfully. 

“ Well, am I, when I have found the man whom I think 
would make me the best husband of any man I have ever 
met, to meekly accept the decision of these wiseacres, and 
never fulfil the mission for which women were sent into the 
world, especially when the supply of the manhood of the 
nation is cut short by a great war ? I don't see it.” 

“ And I don't think that I do now. Now that you have 
put the points before me, I don’t think that when England 
is in sore need of children who shall grow up into men, or 
be the mothers of men, we have a right to stand back 
because of anybody’s prejudices.” 

“ And you surely don’t think that a man ought to marry 
a woman who is nothing to him, and have children by her, 
just because he can marry her, instead of having them by a 
woman whom he loves but cannot marry ? ” 

“ Well, if she is married already. . . .” 

“ She isn’t married if her husband is a man with whom 
she cannot live. She is only a slave of the law.” 

“ I wish I saw things as clearly as you do, Hestia. I 
feel that it is my duty to have children, but I feel as if I 
should be wronging you and be false to myself and my 
people if I did it. They never knew of my first fall from 
my professions, thank goodness ! ” 

“ Go and ask your grandfather what he thinks,” urged 
Hestia at last, in desperation. “ I will abide by his 
decision.” 

“ Yes, I’ll do that, and I’ll abide, too, by what he says. 


350 


Grace Lorraine 


He’s a clergyman, and he has strong ideas about the duty 
of an English gentleman. If he says yes, it must be right. 
And one of the strongest things which is holding me back 
is that I could not bear to lose the respect of him and my 
mother.” 

******* 


Roger spent his next week-end at the Rectory. Under 
pledge of secrecy, he told his grandfather not only of the 
problem before his honour now, but of his earlier fall. 

Harvey Wynyard listened without saying a word until 
Roger had finished, and then he said, “ It is an extreme 
thing for a clergyman to say, but I think that Hestia is 
right. England claims you as a father, and Hestia as a 
husband. Who can say that Our Lord would not have 
included this case in his reply to the Sadducees, who had 
asked Him which of a woman’s seven husbands, married 
to her under the Mosaic law to raise a family, could claim 
her at the Resurrection — ‘ For when they shall rise from 
the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but 
are as the angels which are in heaven.’ ” 

“ Then I can do it with your approval, sir ? ” asked 
Roger gratefully. 

“ Yes, your country must come first. I would have given 
a great deal for your sin not to have happened, Roger — 
not that I would not gladly see you married to Hestia, for 
she is a noble woman, whatever she may have done in the 
past. But you know what I mean. ...” 

“Yes, sir, and I regret it more than anything I ever 
did in my life, except one.” 

“ What was that, Roger ? ” 

“ Promising, after I had done this, to marry Grace.” 

“ Oh, that was low ! ” said his grandfather, with the 
gesture of having a bad taste in his mouth. “ It’s a mercy 
that she had married Ebbutt before you got back.” 

“ I think so, too, sir. Do you think I need tell my 
mother about that . . . ? ” 

“ I don’t think that you need tell her at all. The secret 


The Last Chapter of Via Pacis 351 

is Hestia’s as well as yours, and if you tell her anything, 
you must tell her all. Only the whole truth is the truth. 
When she finds out she may be very unhappy. You are 
not called upon to make her unhappy before she need be, 
for she might escape this knowledge." 

******* 


It was Mr. Dryander who brought the knowledge of it 
to Lady Cynthia by an anonymous letter. He was mad 
with jealousy and rage against Hestia when he learned 
the news. 

She went over to see Grace about it, for Lady Cynthia 
was of the kind who think clearly, and perceived that in a 
small place like Seacombe-cum-Via Pacis, at any rate, there 
was no living under false pretences for Roger. 

“ Have you heard the news about Roger and Hestia, 
Grace ? " she asked. 

“ No," said Grace. She did not say that she guessed it. 

Lady Cynthia told her, adding that this was the first 
she had heard of Hestia’s being married already. 

" What are you going to do ? " asked Grace. 

“ The evil of beginning such a union," said Lady 
Cynthia, “ is less than the evil of letting it end. My 
part, as a Christian and a woman, must be to ensure the 
continuance of this marriage as if it had been regularly 
solemnized. I have far too much respect for Hestia to 
allow her to suffer. But what will you do, Grace ; what will 
Richmond do, if they come to The Myrtle House ? " 

Grace Lorraine smiled. “ The law might treat me as an 
accomplice. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and tell Maecenas 
that the inevitable has happened, and bring him here to 
answer for himself." 

When he came. Lady Cynthia asked, “ Well, what do 
you mean to do, Richmond ? " 

“ Same as I should if I was in Amer-ricky, ma’am. We 
should give her a divorce there in most if not all States, 
and we should consider that she needed extry-special 
sympathy in her noo lease of married life. As a citizen of 


352 


Grace Lorraine 


the U-nited States, I cannot alter my beliefs to suit the 
defective conditions of your laws. We propose to ask Mr. 
and Mrs. Roger to spend their Christmas holidays with us. 
She’s Mrs. Roger, ma’am, if she isn’t Mrs. Wynyard, and 
the name which Gracie will write on that envelope to-day 
will be ‘ Mrs. Roger Wynyard.’ ” 


THE END 


Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey. 



























































































































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